THE LIBRARY
Wilson Library


[1,.“












LYCH RQMATIC
ONE HUNDRED PLATES IN GOLD,


SILVER, AND COLOURS,
COMPRISING UPWARDS OF TWO THOUSAND SPECIMENS
OF THE VARIOUS STYLES OF
ANCIENT, ORIENTAL, AND MEDIXEVAL ART,
AND INCLUDING
THE RENAISSANCE AND THE SEVENTEENTH AND
EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES.
THE SUBJECTS SELECTED AND ARRANGED, IN HISTORICAL ORDER AND
IN A FORM SUITABLE FOR PRACTICAL USE, BY
A. RACINET'
WITH EXPLANATORY TEXT, AND A GENERAL INTRODUCTION,
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH.


LONDON:
HENRY SOTHERAN AND CO.,
136, STRAND; 36, PICCADILLY;
AND 10, TOWER ST., CITY.
1873.


CHISWICK PRESS Z—PRINTED BY WHITTINGIIAM AND WILKINS, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.


:i
*
II.
III.
IV.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
LIST OF THE PLATES IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY ARE ARRANGED.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION.
ONE HUNDRED PLATES, AND DESCRIPTIONS.
CLASSIFIED INDEX OF SUBJECTS.
1538299








LIST OF PLATES

IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY ARE ARRANGED, WITH THE NAMES OF THE SYMBOLS
BY WHICH THEY ARE DISTINGUISHED.

NUMBERS. TITLES. SIGNS. NUMBERS. TITLES.
I. Primitive . A Hive. LII. Renaissance .
II. Egyptian . A Ball. LIII. ,,
III. ,, . A Squirrel. LIV. ,,
IV. Assyrian . A Globe. LV. ,,
V. Greek . A Fly. LVI. ,,
VI. ,, . A Palette. LVII. ,,
VII. Etruscan . A Frying-pan. LVIII. ,,
VIII. Greco-Roman A Dog-kennel. LIX. ,,
IX. ,, A Helmet. LX. ,.
X. Chinese . A Battledore. LXI. ,, . . . . .
XI. Chinese and Japanese . An Anchor. LXII. XVI. and XVII. Centuries
XII. Japanese . . . . A Butterfly. LXIII. Renaissance . . .
XIII. Chinese and Japanes A Crab. LXIV. ,,
XIV. Chinese . . . . . The Sun. LXV. ,,
XV. Chinese and Japanese . An Ear. LXVI. ,,
XVI. Indian . . A Magician. LXVII. ,,
XVII. ,, The Moon. LXVIII. ,, . . . . .
XVIII ,, A Pear. LXIX. XVI. and XVII. Centuries
XIX. ,, A Watering-pot. LXX. XVI. Century
XX. Persian A Negro’s Head. LXXI. ,, . . . .
XXI. ,, A Hammer. LXXII. XVI. and XVII. Centuries
XXII. ,, A Parrot. LXXIII. ,,
XXIII ,, A Cat. LXXIV. XVII. Century . . . .
XXIV. ,, A Trumpet. LXXV. XVII. Century (1st part.) .
XXV. ,, An Elephant. LXXVI. XVII. Century . . . .
XXVI. Arabian A Well. LXXVII. ,, . . . .
XXVII. ,, Scales. LXXVIII. XVII. Century (1st part) .
XXVIII. ,, A Fish. LXXIX. XVII. Century . . . .
XXIX. Moorish A Serpent. LXXX. XVII. Century (2nd part).
XXX. ,, A Boat. LXXXI. XVII. Century . . . .- .
XXXI Byzantine A Hand. LXXXII. XVII. and XVIII. Centuries .
XXXII ,, A Tower. LXXXIII. XVII. Century (2nd part)
XXXIII ,, . A Shield. LXXXIV. XVII. and XVIII. Centuries .
XXXIV ,, A Vase. LXXXV. XVII. Century . . . . .
XXXV. ,, . . A Foot. LXXXVI. XVII. and XVIII. Centuries
XXXVI Middle Ages . . A Star. (Ist part) . . .
XXXVII ,, . . A Barrel. LXXXVII. XVIII. Century
XXXVIII Celtic . A Pink. LXXXVIII. ,,
XXXIX. ,, . . . A Camlelabmm. LXXXIX. ,,
XL. Middle Ages . . . . A Square. XC. ' ,,
XLI. ,, . . . . . . An Ear of Com. XCI. ,,
XLII. ,, . . . . . . A Horse’s Head. XCII. ,,
XLIII. ,, An Extinguisher. XCIII. ,, . . . .
XLIV. ,. Compasses. XCIV. XVII. and XVIII. Centuries .
XLV. ,, An Arrow. XCV. XVIII. Century
XLVI ,, A Snail. XCVI. ,,
XLVII ,, A Windmill. XCVII. ,,
XLVIII. ,, A Tree. XCVIII. ,,
XLIX. ,, A Sgren. XCIX. ,,
L. ,, . A Book. C. ,,
LI Renaissance . A Saw.
51685.
A Halberd.
A Cornucopia.
A Torch.
A Peacoclr.
A Shell.
A Dagger.
ABaslretofF lowers.
An Easel.
An Awe.
Scissors.
A Telescope.
An I nlcstanll.
A Basket.
Keys.
A Cup and Ball.
A Ladder.
A Mask.
A Bunch ofGrapes.
A Violin.
A Fool’s Bauble.
A Cage.
A Boot.
A Ring.
A Sheaf.
A Stool.
An Eye.
A Bow.
A Cannon.
An Angel.
A Lantern.
A Bell.
A Crown.
A Cock.
A Cloclc.
A Fan.
A Harp.
A Pistol.
Flags.
A Kite.
A Chest.
A Shuttlecoclt'.
A Rake.
A Sabot.
A Medal.
A Bow.
A Candlestick.
A Pine Apple.
A Comb.
A Bottle.



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I N T R O DU C T IO N.
: HIS book is meant to be chiefly practical, being less a treatise than a collection, and teach-
ing more by example than by precept. By the adoption of this method we have
avoided the discussion of dangerous theories, which, however correct they may be,
remain too vague and general when presented in an abstract manner. Nothing can be
more eloquent than the sight of the master-pieces themselves; and to point out by
analysis the lessons they contain is a proceeding much more conclusive than to pretend
to demonstrate them by an à priori synthesis, frequently too absolute to be adapted to the many
unavoidable exceptions, or the necessities of peculiar cases. The latter method would be especially
dangerous if applied to that branch of art which is least capable of adapting itself to inflexible laws, and in
which the greatest liberty has to be left to the instinct, the imagination, or even to the caprice of the artist.
Most assuredly, however, we would not say that the productions of this art can dispense with
obedience to certain principles and superior laws, to which every artistic conception must conform.
Thus, an ornamental composition can only be perfectly beautiful when it produces in the spectator that
sentiment of repose and satisfaction which results from the equilibrium and perfect harmony of the
elements of which it is composed. The laws of proportion, the laws of balancing and symmetry, the subor-
dination of details to the whole, variety in unity, all these rules, dictated by instinct and proclaimed by
science, are binding on the art of ornamentation as on all others.
But yet, whilst painting and sculpture are more or less fettered by sense and logic, or by the
necessity of the imitation and exact rendering of natural objects; whilst architecture must comply
with various conditions—solidity, the purpose of the building, and the correlation of exterior aspect
with interior use; ornament, and especially that kind which now occupies us—the decoration of coloured
surfaces—has a sphere of action, doubtless more modest, but yet enjoying much greater liberty.
Many means exist by which this end may be attained, many ways of arriving at this combination of
proportion and harmony which gives birth to the sentiment of the beautiful.
If ornament may borrow from other arts their various characteristics—from architecture its general
forms and the interest attaching to repetitions and variations of the same motive; from sculpture its
real or imitated reliefs; from painting the charms of episodic subjects and of natural colouring—it
may, without diverging from its proper sphere, find inexhaustible resources.
From the simplest geometric figure—a square, a lozenge, or a triangle, the repetition and intermingling
of which frequently suffice to form an interesting whole—to the most ingeniously complicated interlacings,
the most capricious arabesques, and those chimerical compositions in which the line, the flower, the
animal and the human figure are mixed and blended together, what a vast domain for the orna-
mentalist, who thus finds himself master of that fantastic and charming world, which depends not on
nature but on the imagination! What captivating and even seductive liberty, if such freely-ranging caprice
were not to be regulated by taste and judged by the effect produced, which must be, whatever the means
employed, harmony in form as well as in colour!
B


2 POLYCHROMATIC' ORNAMENT.
Thus, the place which ornament occupies in the artistic scale is, though a secondary yet an important
one. If it is less ambitious than other forms of art, if it does not attempt like them to raise our souls and
make them vibrate with the deepest feelings, it responds to one of the most instinctive needs of our
nature, that of embellishing the objects around us.
Sometimes united to the creations of the higher arts in order to complete them, sometimes applied to
the commonest objects, which it relieves and ennobles, it is the natural link between industry and art,
of which it represents one of the most familiar, practical, and varied forms.
Thus the general characteristics of ornamentation are a multiplicity of applications, and an almost
unlimited variety and liberty in the employment of means. But from this very character there arises,
as we said just now, a great difliculty in determining its rules otherwise than by example, and in forming
a priori the Code of Ornament.
This, then, we have not attempted, and it is solely by analysis and by considering in their historical
order the various styles from which the subjects of our plates are taken, that we shall endeavour, in
this short introduction, to explain their sources and mechanism, and to furnish those who will make use
of it with the means of enlightened appreciation and imitation, or what is better, of profitable appro-
priation. With this view before us, we shall only preface this historical sketch by a few brief preliminary
observations calculated to lighten the way and provide the elements for a conclusion which the reader
can draw for himself.
There are three processes in the production of ornament—the drawing or design, colouring, and relief.
By the help of these means, the two first of which are especially to occupy our attention, the
artist may obtain the most varied results, all coming, however, within the three following categories:
lst. The invention of subjects purely imaginary, foreign to the productions of nature.
2ndly. The conventional representation of natural objects, expressed merely in their essential
characters, and under generalized types.
3rdly. The imitative representation of objects, in which nature is followed both as regards design
and colouring.
The first, which borrows nothing from the imitative arts, appears to a certain degree in every style
and in every period. The lineal and geometric combinations (interlacings, meanders, and roses), which are
its primitive basis, respond to the faculties of order and measure which are to be found in evcry human
brain; being the direct productions of pure imagination, they create that which had no existence. Although
this style occupies a more important place in the art of certain nations, such as the Arabs or Anglo-
Saxons, yet in none is it wholly wanting. Whether apparent or not, this geometric process forms the basis
of the greater number of ornamental compositions.
The second, the conventional representation, which is a link between the two others and is
frequently mixed with the first, resembles this first style to some degree in the domain of creative
invention, by its faculty of idealizing, that is, of generalizing under the form of archetypes, and of
appropriating the models taken from nature. It is by this idealized imitation, that the artist, according
to the happy expression of M. Charles Blane, “enters into the grandeur of universal life;” and it is
from this style that we may expect the highest type of ornament; since, as the author of the “ Gram-
maire des Arts du Dessin” says again, “ this style is the impress of the human mind on nature.”
As to the purely imitative representation of objects, it is when approaching modern times that we
most frequently meet with this individualizing style, the especial aim of which is to give the most exact
rendering of the object represented, to express it with all its accidental modifications, reliefs, and shades of
colour; in short, with all its distinctive qualities and complete physiognomy. This style, the results of
which are less severe and more delicate than those of the two others, arose from the increased use of
painting in the domestic arts, and the improvement in the manual skill of the artist, and was thus well
suited to the refined and elegant tastes of an advanced civilization. This frequent use of purely imitative
painting suggested charming decorations to the skilful artists who adorned modern art, especially that
of France, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; not, however, altogether without abuse as well
as injury to certain industrial arts (such as keramics, painting on glass, the manufacture of carpets, &c.),
which would have gained by keeping to, and would even now gain by returning to, simpler and more
truly decorative processes.
We will only say in conclusion that the application of colour to ornament (the principal object of this
work) is bound up in the closest manner with the use of one or other of the modes of proceeding we


PRIMITIVE STYLE. 3
have just explained. Where the representation of objects is ideal or conventional, the colour is likewise
conventional, and the ornamentalist remains master of his palette. The severity of the design is thus
redeemed by liberty in chromatics, that is to say, by the advantage of being able to choose and arrange the
colours at will, without any necessity for resemblance or even for probability, but merely observing the
laws of harmony. This road, always open to creative originality, was never abandoned by the Orientals,
and in following it they acquired unequalled experience.
We will now trace, through the history of the different periods of art, the application of the various
styles, the substance of which we have endeavoured to define.
PRIMITIVE DECORATION.
PLATE I.
#|MONG the examples contained in Plate 1, the term primitive, that is to say anterior to any
| conception of rules of art, belongs in reality only to those examples (Nos. 1 to 17), which re-
present the almost instinctive conceptions of the tribes of Oceania or Central Africa, applied
to the decoration of objects in common use. We have thought it advisable to add to this
succinct glance at instinctive ornamentation, a few monochromatic fragments, carved or sculptured,
which serve to complete its simple characteristics.
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Fragments of Carving (Louvre Museum).
Except in Nos. 4, 8, and 12 of our plate, in which some outlines of flowers are to be found, all
these instinctive designs are pure creations. The extremely moderate use of colour, the abuse of
which is so easy, is no less remarkable than the manner of the design. Considered as primitive, this stage
of art is not without its value, since, in the absence of a knowledge of higher rules, the workman would
feel strongly at the very outset the need of order, symmetry, and harmony, his combinations being limited,
it is true, but already characterized by appropriate colouring. Nowhere shall we find a more vigorous use
of black than may be seen in Nos. 2 and 10, and especially in No. 4, where, on a bright red ground,
the isolating principle of the white outline gives that powerful aid to effect so frequently obtained
by the subtle colourists of Asia.
To these productions, presenting every characteristic of primitive art, we have added several
examples of Peruvian or Mexican ornamentation belonging to a more advanced stage of civilization. We
have done this because, in the first place, the limits of our collection do not allow us to give a separate
place to those little-known arts, and also because it seemed to us interesting to place together, so as to
mark the difference between, the purely individual efforts, such as those of wild tribes, and those in
which the influence of architecture, in procuring unity of character, may already be felt.
Certainly the Mexican paintings given under Nos. 22 to 47 are not of an agreeable colouring, but
beneath the barbarism of colour the intentions are not without value, and flow from the high prin-
ciples, whence flow the different styles; principles to which architecture alone gave birth, and of which


4 POLYCHROMATIC OR NAMENT.
the ancient monuments of Yucatan and Mexico, reminding us of those of Egypt, India, Japan, and
especially of Assyria, furnish prototypes.
Decoration of a Pirogue. (Louvre.) Club.
Between the primitive state, and the establishment of architectural rules, it may easily be seen that a
period of gestation must have elapsed, which we have no means of measuring or of following.
Authentic history does not even commence for us with the oldest monuments of architecture; we know
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Braided Leather. (Modern Mexican Decoration. Louvre.)
nothing of the civilizations which erected them, and what may remain of preceding ages is still of no utility
to us. “In the state of intermixture in which the great human families are now found spreading over the


A NCIENT. EG YPTIAN, AND ASSYRIAN ART. 5
surface of the globe,” says M. Viollet-le-Duc (“Cités et Ruines Américaines”), “it is difficult to distinguish
the particular aptitudes which originally belonged to each of them.” This is unfortunately evident, but yet
we may, with Ziegler, and without entering into the pre-historic study of particular aptitudes, consider
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Pieces of the Monuments of Uxmal (Yucatan).
Taken from “Monuments anciens et modernes” by Gailhabaud; Paris, Firmin Didot.
keramics as the element which inspired the formula of architectural design. The analogy between the
principles is the same, and man handled the potter's clay before the wood or stone of monuments. It
is to keramics then that we must attribute the fertile principles of the idealization and generalization of
the forms of nature from which architecture and ornamentation were to derive such great advantages.
ANCIENT ART.
#|N classing under this denomination Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Etruscan, Roman, and Greco-
| Roman art, we are influenced less by a question of priority (since Asiatic art co-existed with
that of later times, while some of its forms may claim the highest imaginable antiquity,) than
I by deference for the time-honoured phraseology which reserves this term ancient for those
states of civilization which were made known to us by Greek and Latin literature, and the study of
which, brought into honour at the time of the Renaissance, forms the principal basis of our classical
education.
This group has besides a well-defined physiognomy which favours its study by itself, and its tradition
may be easily followed through the various historical phases which these nations have passed through.
EGYPTIAN AND ASSYRIAN.
PLATES II., III.
Egyptian.
£HE history of ancient art commences in Egypt.
- Whether the arts of ancient Egypt be considered as a point of junction of the Semitic,
Ethiopian, and Berber races, as a summing up of the attempts of earlier civilizations which
have remained almost unknown to us, or be looked at as the origin of the Greek, Etruscan
and Greco-Roman arts, that is to say, as the source of classical traditions, they have a two-fold claim to
our respect in their antiquity and superior merits.


6 POLYCHROMATIC ORNAMENT.
The art of the Egyptians was essentially lofty, spiritualistic and symbolic, and this character is
to be found in the highest degree in their ornamental compositions.
The elements of the real world, combined under generalized forms, compose the basis of their
decoration. The sober outlines within which it is contained are of unequalled amplitude; their only object
is the expression of the species, not of the individual, and they represent, under ideal forms, types,
which, though few, are very varied in their application.
The colouring consists of flat tints, without shading, employed in a conventional manner like the forms
themselves. In the notice on Plate II. there will be found an enumeration of the colours used on
the Egyptian’s palette.
Nearly all the objects which compose this ornamentation are plainly symbols.
M. J acquemart, in his “ Memeilles de la céramique,” thus explains the greater part of the images
represented in our two plates :—
“ It is easy to show the important part played by a plant which is to be found in all Oriental theories. The deified lotus represents
the homage rendered to the beneficent action of water and sun on the sleeping earth; it is the symbolism of the annual evolutions of
the seasons, causing generation to succeed generation, and bringing back life where every thing seemed like the immobility of death. The sun
itself was the object of direct worship, the forms of which were varied by the priests to make it penetrate more deeply among the masses.
Everyone is familiar with the winged disc, under which the two serpents Urazus raise their heads, the royal symbols of Upper and Lower
Egypt; it is the sun in his material form as he figures on the threshold of the temples, on the funereal and votive monuments, and even on the
clothing of the priests and kings; ardent and poetic prayers were addressed to it, such as the following :—-‘ Glory to thee, Ra, in thy morning
radiance, Tmon, in thy setting. . . . . Thou dost illumine, thou dost shine, appearing as the sovereign of the gods.” But there is
another solar image which demands an explanation. In the country, in our own land, we find an insect generally looked at with disgust, the
beetle . . . Now, if the Egyptians chose out for deification such a small and repulsive being, it was because they had discovered wonderful
details in its habits. And, indeed, when we observe the actions of this insect on sandy slopes, we see it penetrate into animal excrements,
chooae a suitable mass which it kneads into a ball, after having placed its egg within, and which it afterwards drags along by its hind legs,
until the heat has hardened the surface ; it then buries the ball, in the interior of which the birth and transformation of the larva are to take
place, and from which will afterwards emerge the perfect insect, to accomplish in its turn all the various processes of generation. The
scarabzeus appeared then to the Egyptians to be imitating, on a small scale, the work of the Creator. The stercoraceous ball, containing an
egg, is the ground animated with the vital germ and undergoing, under the influence of solar heat, its natural evolution. Here there
is some resemblance between the Creator and the work produced, and this resemblance sufficed to raise the humble insect to the rank
of the greatest of gods.”
No. 12 in Plate II. represents the black scarabaeus holding in its upper claws the sun’s disc, and
in the lower ones the stercoraceous ball. It is the complete symbol.
To these symbolic representations, the Egyptians frequently added hieroglyphic signs. Writing thus
became to them a means of ornament, a process which the Greeks appear to have neglected, but from
which the Persians, Arabs and Moors obtained the happiest efi'ects.




Balustrade. Egyptian feather.
The following passage from M. Champollion-Figeac will give an idea of the extent of the application
of ornament amongst the Egyptians :—
“ Furniture of common or of rare and exotic woods, of metals either engraved or decorated with gilding ; plain and figured stuffs, em-
broidered, dyed and painted, of linen, cotton and silk, all contributed to the adornment of Egyptian houses, and to the convenience of home life
. . . . The same care was given to the fabrication of steps, bedsteads with head-boards and bolsters, divans, sofas, wardrobes with two
doors, sideboards, small tables, caskets and chests, and everything of that kind necessary for the use of a family. The footstool matched
in material and ornaments with the arm-chair for which it was intended. There were folding-seats in wood, the legs having the form of the
head and neck of a swan. Other arm-chairs were made of cedar-wood incrusted with ivory and ebony, and the seats of cane firmly interwoven.
Stands, round tables, gaming-tables, boxes of all sizes corresponded in material and workmanship with the remainder of the furniture. Mats
and carpets of brilliant and varied colours and sometimes adorned with pictures illustrating stories, covered the floor of the apartment or those
portions of it that were most used: in the rooms there were also vases of gold, of costly materials, of gilded metals, relieved with enamels and
precious stones, of an elegance and variety of form, of which we should have had no idea but for the paintings of them which remain.”


GREEK, ETR US CAN AND GRECO-ROMAN ART. 7
The firmness, justness and fulness of the Egyptian drawing have never been surpassed. The
lines of their hieroglyphics covering the papyrus and the stela, and executed in running hand, surpass
sometimes in representations of animals even the finest works of the Greeks. The fact of these good
draughtsmen restraining motion in their pictures into what appears to us extreme rigidity, showed a
purpose that cannot be attributed to their religious laws alone. In resisting the pliability of their skilful
and learned hand, they were obeying principles of art, of which they proved the fertility and which deserve
on that account all our attention. The study of Egyptian productions is full of instruction, first as to
what they are in themselves, and secondly, as to what they did not wish to be. Their sober outlines,
whether simple lineaments or metallic envelopes, constantly remain before us as models for those
ornamentalists who wish to retain the conditions of idealism and grandeur of style.
Assyrian.—Assyrian ornamentation, fragments of which are given in Plate IV., belongs to a secondary
period, and might be called, as we remarked in our notice, the Scytho-Assyrian; it is indeed posterior
to the conquest of primitive Babylon, whose arts must have come from that Indo-Bactrian source,
still represented in Iran by monuments of which we possess no detailed drawings.
The Egyptian influence is seen clearly in some parts of the buildings of Persepolis: the winged globe,
the head-dress of the Egyptian divinity Socharis, Uraeus and balusters surmounted by the globe, prove
that these buildings, enriched with borrowed ornaments, are posterior to the conquest of Egypt by
Cambyses. No rule, no prescription of any school, seems to oppose the variety of forms, in which
there is greater caprice than just proportion. We feel that the Egyptian artists summoned by the
successors of Cambyses lost some of their worth when leaving the place of their education, which was
already itself in a relative state of decay, and that they succeeded but imperfectly in transplanting their
art to another land. Having to apply itself on a new soil to the decoration of palaces and no longer of
temples, Egyptian symbolism no longer possesses the same hieratic meaning; brought face to face with a
foreign civilization, there remain but feeble vestiges of it. No. 1 in our plate is a painted bas-relief
representing the sacred tree, one of the most frequently repeated figures in Assyrian symbolism. The
winged figures surrounding the sun, No. 2, seem to be the symbol of the soul, &c.
Assyrian ornamentation, including the bas-reliefs, was entirely painted, or gilded and silvered. “I have
ascertained,” says M. Texier, when speaking of Persepolis, “that there is not a corner of the palace in which
there is not the most delicate and careful painting; it was the same at Khorsabad, at Nimroud, and also at
Ecbatana, the capital of Media, where, according to Polybius, in his description of the palace of the kings of
Persia, the porticoes, the peristyles, the walls were covered with plates of gold and silver, which were
pillaged by the soldiers of Alexander.”
The enamelled bricks of regular design and overlapping, of which we give two fine specimens, must be,
from their manufacture, a Chinese importation (Texier, Asie-Mineure); at any rate, they are the earliest
models of the bricks for facings, of which the modern Persians make so large and ingenious a use.
GREEK, ETRUSCAN, AND GRECO-ROMAN.
PLATEs W., WI.
Greek.
£|REEK art in its commencement is thought to have been merely a continuation of the Egyptian
tradition, modified by Assyrian and more especially by Phoenician influences. The world
knows what, in the hands of a composite race, endowed with the highest artistic faculties that
have ever been found among men, these various traditions have called forth in Hellas. After a
certain time of incubation, a style was produced bearing but a distant relation to that of preceding civiliza-
tions, and the creation of an ideal which has retained its superiority in high plastic work.
Under the influence of these arts, ornamentation likewise underwent a remarkable change. Greek
ornament, less hieratic than the Egyptian, less restricted to the narrow use of the symbol, less spiritualistic
and more living, possesses greater liberty, pliancy and grace, which were never abused, but always kept
within bounds by the good taste of the Greeks.
Always pure, noble and elevated, ingenious and varied, but never luxuriant or excessive, Greek


8 POLY CHROMATIC OR NA MENT.
ornament bore the stamp of those superior qualities which raised architecture, sculpture, and the other
plastic arts to such an elevation, but at the same time, and as a natural consequence of the development
of the other forms of art, a secondary rank was assigned to ornament, almost always subordinated to the
interest of the figures of men or animals, which wind round the vases, and people the metopes and friezes.
If we seek now, from the point of view announced in the commencement of this study, the principal
character in Greek ornament, we shall find it to be clearly conventional (when it is not purely ideal) and
though inspired by the general forms found in nature, free from a servile imitation of details.
A rapid enumeration of its favourite motives will enable us to recognize this ruling character of Greek
ornament. Thus the graceful palmette of which the antifixae are formed, which play so important a part
on-the friezes of the temples, as well as on the bowls and necks of vases, is taken from the pods of
the carob tree, variously united and twisted into branches, plumes, etc.; but the variation from nature
is so great that it may be considered as a real creation, almost as much so as the meanders, cable
mouldings, etc. Some other palmettes, taken from different plants, such as the aloe and the convolvulus,
designs composed with leaves of water plants, ivy, laurel, or vine complete the ordinary flora of Greek
ornament, the most celebrated type of which is that acanthus leaf which decorates the Corinthian capital,
Fragment of a Stela, from Asia Minor, with palmette and acanthus leaves.
(Taken from the “Expédition scientifique en Morée,” by Blouet. 3 volumes, folio; Paris, Firmin Didot.)
concerning which Vasari has handed down to us the charming fable. “That acanthus stem, oh
Callimachus, the sculptor! that acanthus stem,” cries Ziegler, “which you found richly growing in a
place of sepulture, and with which you decorated the capital, the glory of the Corinthian name, that irre-
pressible acanthus has passed through twenty-two centuries, without losing one of its leaves, and has
covered with its branches the whole monumental world.”
Symmetry and regularity are the general principles of Greek decoration; everything was made to
yield to these rules —“Even the white crests of the waves of the sea,” says M. Jacquemart, in speaking of
the Vitruvian scrolls, “so often frayed by the winds, seemingly essentially variable and capricious,
are brought under the yoke of ornamental regularity; painters have transformed them into the elegant
Vitruvian scrolls which the ancients had the sense to place always at the base of goblets, whilst among us,
through ignorance of their signification, they are frequently placed where they are perfectly meaningless.”
(Examples of these may be seen in Plate V. Nos. 11, 12, 13 and 14, and in Plate VI. No. 19.)


th:
ment
GREEK, ETRUS CAN AND GRECO-ROMAN ART. 9
The other principal elements of Greek ornament, a part of which is especially suited to archi-
tecture, are:
Meanders or Frets, interlacings of straight lines broken and cut at right angles, many examples of
which may be seen in Plates W. and VI., and the use of which was so frequent in Hellenic art that they
are frequently called Greek frets.
Cable Mouldings, combinations of curved lines, penetrating regularly into each other (Plate VI. Nos.
16, 25, 26, 27, 29). They are sometimes simple and sometimes double. (Nos. 16 and 25.)
Trellised Mouldings or plaits, an imitation of a plait of hair.
Chaplets or Astragals are composed of a number of round and oval bodies seemingly strung together,
and which probably represent the necklaces worn by women.
Ogees, showing flowers and leaves of water plants (See Plate V. Nos. 13, 14, 15, and Plate VI. No. 3).
Channellings, short flutings, the ground of which is filled with pointed leaves (See Plate VI. No. 17).
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Greek Trellised Mouldings.
Greco-Roman Frieze. (Acanthus Leaves, Egg-mouldings and Chaplets of Pearls.)
(Taken from the “Description de l'Asie Mineure,” by Ch. Texier; Paris, Firmin Didot.)
Egg-mouldings, ornaments cut in the shape of an egg, which frequently take the form of such fruit as
the chestnut, the shell being left open.
Bucranes, ornaments designed from the ox's skull. Leathern bands or thongs, horns decorated with
flowers or jewels, or else garlands and wreaths of flowers nearly always accompany them. These bands
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(Subject taken from the “Description de l'Asie Mineure,” by Ch. Texier.)
and adornments remained fastened to the horns of a victim, and, after the sacrifice, were suspended with his
head from the walls of temples, tombs or altars. The artificial reminder of these offerings becomes
a chief feature of noble decoration on the friezes of temples, and like all that the Greeks touched, turned
in their hands into a fresh source of beauty.
Modern art has not abandoned these charming and fertile inventions, some of which are common to
C


10 POLYCHROMA TIC ORNAJIENT.
Greek and other arts (such, for instance, as the meander, which is to be found everywhere, and the taste for
which seems innate in man), whilst others belong more especially to Hellenic art. Without speaking of
architecture, the decorative arts still derive most useful instruction from these productions of ancient
Greece.
The colouring in Greek ornament, as well as the form, is always conventional. It was used very
frequently, for the Greeks applied polychromatic decoration to numerous branches of art.
Architecture may be mentioned as the first of these. It is now beyond question that this art was
frequently polychromatic. The skilful restorations by our artists, and especially by the holders of our art
scholarships at Rome, have assisted largely in demonstrating this fact, which receives frequent confirmation
in the fresh researches and discoveries of scholars and artists. Plate VI. presents some interesting
examples of architectural colouring.
lifosaz'c, the very nature of which is based on the employment of materials of various colours, is
likewise essentially polychromatic.
Incrustation of metals also derives its principal effect from the opposition and blending of tints, and
was much admired by the Greeks.
And lastly, colour is the principal ornament of Keramz'cs, the importance of which has induced us to
give up to it an entire plate of the two that we were able to devote to pure Greek ornament.
This manufacture spread over the rest of Greece and even Italy, from Corinth, the city of potters;
and indeed many of the vases found in Apulia and Etruria were of Greek fabrication.
Some of these vases were already in existence in the time of Homer. In the most ancient known,
the style resembles the Egyptian, and these would date from ten or twelve centuries before the Christian
era; the designs are usually black on a light ground, and the details of the models seem to have been
taken from embroideries. Nos. 1, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 26 of Plate V. belong to this style and period. The
employment of black ground is of a later date; it was in use at the time when Greek art was at its
highest development. Nos. 17, 18, 19 and 20 of the, same plate belong to this manner; they come from
Apulia, and show by their variety and freedom of treatment all the resources of the style.
Etruscan (Plate VII.) .—Before examining what Greek art became on an Italian soil, we mus speak
of an art contemporary with that of the Greeks, and which was, in some degree, merged into it to
form the Greco-Roman style.
The art of the Etruscans, who inhabited the centre of Italy, dated from the most remote antiquity.
Their race is supposed to have been formed from
indigenous as well as from Pelasgic and Phoenician
elements, and, in this mingling VVinkelmann discerns
the hardy race from whom the Tuscans have sprung.
They became the artists of the Romans, and built
their ancient edifices.
Independently of their keramics, always cele-
brated, but now usually considered as belonging to
the Egyptian or Greek style, either through imita-
tion or importation, the Etruscans had made great
advances in goldsmith’s work, and it is to this
national product that Plate VII. has been devoted.
The skill of the Etruscan goldsmiths was cele-
brated in ancient times. Their jewels in embossed
or chased gold were appreciated and much sought
after, even at Athens. They knew and practised
every resource of this art and carried it to perfection ;
under their skilful hand everything was made to lend
its assistance: flowers, fruits, real or fantastic
animals, human, heroic, or deified figures, alternating
with vases of all forms, with acorns, discs, cornucopiae, intermixed with rose work, crescents, flattened
or lentil-shaped balls, with chains of every sort of work‘and of all sizes, intermingled with emeralds, to


Etruscan Funeral Jewels.
(Taken from “ Etrurie et les Etrusques,” by M. Noel Des Vergers.1)
1 Those of our readers who wish to know more of the Etruscan style may advantageously consult this very interesting work.


GREEK, ETRUS CAN AND GRECO-ROMAN ART. 11
which medicinal virtues were attributed, and the peculiar green of which harmonizes so well with the yellow
of gold, pearls, glass-paste, enamels, cameos, intaglios: a union effected with such good taste in so great a
variety, that many of these jewels are still considered masterpieces of their kind.
They consist of diadems and crowns, hair-pins, ear-drops, necklaces, fibulae, bracelets, rings, objects
of worship, and funeral jewels.
Scarabaei are frequently introduced in necklaces, bracelets and rings; they usually unite the work
of the intaglio and the cameo; their under surface, flat and hollowed out, contains either hieroglyphics or
various figures. The upper part, on the contrary, always convex, is sculptured in relief and represents in a
more or less complete manner the Egyptian scarabaeus, from the use of which not merely on jewels but
also on clothing, necklaces, utensils and sword hilts we may probably infer, if not a direct worship as
amongst the Egyptians, at all events some superstitious ideas.
The Intaglios or deepening, for which the Greeks at the finest periods of their art had a marked
predilection, and of which the Etruscans also made great use, were usually transparent and of a single
colour. Amongst precious stones, properly so called, the amethyst, hyacinth, and sometimes the opaque
emerald were especially chosen; from the others the cornelian, the chalcedony, and more rarely the jasper
and lapis-lazuli.
Under the Roman dominion and the ever-increasing invasion of Greek art, the productions of
Etruria lose their peculiar character, and the indigenous works yield completely to the foreign influence.
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Acanthus Leaf. (Roman scroll.)
We turn then naturally to the development of Greco-Roman art, which terminates the cycle of ancient
art properly so called.
Greco-Roman. (Plates VIII., IX.)—The ancient Romans possessed nothing of their own worthy the
name of art. After the first period of that art which they were indebted for to their Etruscan builders,
a period characterized especially in Architecture by the use of the vault and arcades, and the modifi-
cations it entailed in the use of ornament, we have just seen that the workmen of Etruria, losing their
primitive originality by contact with the Greek colonies, assumed by degrees all the traditions of the latter.
There was then no longer any art in Italy but the Greek, after the arrival of the objects of art brought
by Marcellus from Syracuse, by Mummius from Corinth, and by all the Roman generals after them.
Conquered Greece had become through her arts in her turn the conqueror. Those master-pieces which
rendered Rome an enormous museum determined the direction of Roman taste.
The paintings of Pompeii and Herculaneum are, according to our most learned archaeologists and
artists, of the same kind as the paintings that adorned the houses in Athens. (See Hittorff, “L’Architecture
polychrome chez les Grecs,” chapter IX. entitled “Lettres d'un Antiquaire à un Artiste,” by Letronne.)
“In decorative painting applied to dwelling-houses, the competent archaeologist accepts as a fact that
the Romans took everything from the Hellenes, both in taste and the means of satisfying it; that the Greek
artists carried on their art at Rome and in all Italy as they had practised it in their own country; in short,
that the Romans accepted their inheritance, and that, as a consequence, the decoration of the ancient Roman
dwellings, and the houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the paintings in which are exclusively Greek in
manner and execution, must give an exact idea of the similar decoration which adorned the houses of
Greece, not only at a contemporaneous epoch, but also at an anterior time.”


12 PO L YCHROMATIC OR NA MENT.
These paintings are not all of the same value. A certain number appear to have been executed
by inferior artists; but the beauty of some makes us think that they were copies and repetitions
of Greek works of great celebrity. -
Besides decorative painting, we find at Pompeii, in some degree of perfection, another application
of polychromatic colouring in mosaic.
But this latter branch of art underwent in the hands of the Romans, from the times of the Empire,
some modifications which have been explained with great truth by M. Jeanron in his book entitled
“Origines et Progrès de l'Art,” in a passage which we think it better to quote, notwithstanding its
length, because in this particular art it allows us to follow the history of the decay of Greek art in the
last period of Roman civilization.
“The Romans,” says this eminent critic, “who possessed a knowledge of mosaic in a rudimentary state, received it, like every other process
in art, from the hands of the Greeks, in a more advanced state. Soon their love of luxury, their contempt of expense, caused it to spread widely
among them and to arrive at real progress, as the monuments that have been discovered amply prove . . . The Romans were not long, however,
in perverting the nature of what the Greeks had transmitted to them. The exquisite taste of the latter, their understanding of the distribution
of ornament, their advanced imitative science, could not but have enabled them to realize charming conceptions in mosaic. But assuredly the good
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sense of the Greeks could never have brought mosaic into contention with the highest prerogatives of painting. The Greeks, it is supposed, had
made the compartment of their paved floors represent ornaments, branches, scrolls, festoons, interlacings; and passing onward from these
capricious forms, somewhat of the nature of arabesques, to symbols and attributes more significant, they had adopted griffins, chimeras, tragic
or comic masks, the signs of the zodiac, vine branches, birds pecking fruits and all the well-known motives of their ornamentation. It may
even be admitted that the idea must frequently have occurred to them to set in the centre of the formal arrangements of some rich pavement a
scene of the kind that they treated with so much grace and simplicity: nymphs asleep or giving water to some fantastic animal, dancers, actors,
players on the flute or castanets. It is thus that the finest antique mosaics are arranged: the one that was found at Otricoli during the last
century, and which is the finest ornament in the circular hall of the Pio-Clementino Museum; that of Italica, and the famous Praenestine, which
paved the splendid temple of Fortune at Praeneste under Sylla.
“But, as is well known, when the Romans liked anything they carried it to an excess. Caesar, before this time, by his own order was
followed into the heart of Gaul by workers in marble; and, all through his expeditions, the compartments of the opus tesselatum et sectile (varieties
of mosaic) were laid hastily in his tent. And at a later time, Heliogabalus, thinking that, on the day when Rome, or rather his Praetorians,
should be tired of him, he might have to dash his brains out upon the pavement of his courtyard, caused it to be inlaid with precious stones.
“But long before the time of Heliogabalus, the Romans, who loved mosaics and wished to have them everywhere, were no longer satisfied
with adorning the floors of their courts and lower rooms with them; they also decorated the walls, the arches and the ceilings. From what Pliny
says we might even imagine that this last plan was more followed than the other, that the mosaics were thought too beautiful to be trampled under .
foot any longer, and that they wished to enjoy them as pictures.”
Here M. Jeanron shows that pebbles, stones, natural or coloured marbles, paste and terra-cotta,
shells and fragments of pots, being no longer able to contend with the colours of painting—especially during
a time when painters, impelled by a mad love of brilliancy and richness, borrowed from red lead, purple,
azure, gold and silver, their deceptive glitter and striking oppositions—mosaic demanded fresh resources in


GREEK, ETRUS CAN AND GRECO-ROMAN ART. 13
various precious stones, such as agate, jasper, cornelian, sardonyx, emerald, turquoise, lapis-lazuli, in short,
from all the colours of enamels, to imitate every fancy of the painter with his seven or eight principal
colours.
“This idea was false,” continues M. Jeanron, “for had the worker in mosaic had more shades at his service, and the painter fewer colours,
it would even then have been an unequal strife. But the centuries of political decay which witnessed the greatest triumphs of mosaic, well explain
pretensions and triumphs. In the later times of the empire the requirements of luxury daily narrowed the domain of art, and the pursuit of a
false brilliancy gave to artists a merely feverish activity. Painting had come to be nothing but an ambitious collection of colours, in which the
Mosaic.
(Taken from “Herculanum et Pompéi,” by Roux and Barré; Paris, Firmin Didot.)
rawest tints were united to the poorest forms. Mosaic being more costly, more glittering to the eye and smoother to the touch, could not but
dethrone its rival; thus this deplorable revolution was actuated by no idea at all approaching to a higher character. Mosaic, restricted by its
very nature, submitted to the most ungrateful handiwork, unable to carry out its idea immediately, but obliged to go through the wearisome and
lengthy process of calking and cutting, soon forgot all that painting had succeeded in teaching it and became a mere manufacture. The workers
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in mosaic soon left off drawing for themselves the subjects they intended to execute with their enamels; they passed about from one to another,
as a stock-in-trade, the cartoons and pounced drawings that were needed. Now, when it is remembered that, notwithstanding the deplorable
degeneracy of its only artistic parts, mosaic had none the less taken from painting its finest and noblest undertakings, it will be clearly seen how
rapid the decay must have been in all the arts of design.”
At last, with the reign of the Syrian princes, and the invasion of Eastern religions, there came
an influx of magic and sensualism absorbing everything before them, and science and observation vanished
under a love of the supernatural and unbridled luxury. Cameos became amulets, medals talismans, and
under these circumstances, the clear, measured art of the Greeks, on a foreign soil and with the ideas of
another race, was doomed to completely disappear. The last and faintest expression of this art is to be
found in the paintings in the catacombs of Rome, the symbolic ornamentation of which is an hieroglyphic
language framed to meet new wants.


APPENDIX O N C H R O MATICS. 15
“Let R be the red point, B the blue point a little nearer; both form their image at an equal distance from the crystalline lens, and, if
this distance coincide with that of the retina, we shall see the two coloured points with the same clearness, by one and the same arrangement.
The peculiar state of the eye is now no longer capable of telling us that the two points R and B are not at equal distances from it. We will
now take the point D, which we will suppose blue. To receive a clear image on the retina of this point, the eye has to undergo a slight modifi-
cation, and be accommodated to a greater distance. If the blue point B seems to us as distant as the red point R, it is clear that the blue point
D will appear more distant.
“When looking from a certain distance at coloured windows, formed by red and blue squares, surrounded by a black grating, it seems as if
the red were more prominent than the blue, and were actually standing out; the black spaces formed by the grating give the effect of oblique
planes leading to the background of blue glass. The inverse result is never seen.
“The advancing colours are, red, orange and yellow. The retreating colours belong to the various categories of blue; blue and violet are
intermediate; green is advancing in relation to blue, and especially to ultramarine; it is retreating in comparison with red, orange
and yellow. -
“. . . . . . If we bring forward the advancing colour, and place in the background the retreating colour, we increase the effect of the
illusion; in the contrary case, we diminish it . . . .
“Certain designs can awaken in us impressions as of their being in relief, though vague, and as if seen dimly in a dream; the charm
exercised by these designs is produced precisely by this effect. It may easily be seen that the retreating or advancing properties of a colour
must have a marked influence on the production of such phenomena, and that an exact knowledge of these characters is well calculated to
render important services in the composition of colours.”
We will not insist any longer on this subject, it is easy to make an application of this complete theory
in the example given: the brilliant red, the orange, and yellow, and then the retreating blue colour calculated
to give a greater distance; green is the intermediate part, and, lastly, in the upper part and approaching
the blue ground, the absence of orange and the red softening down into pink, and losing its advancing
intensity. What completes the value of this mural painting, is that theory further demonstrates that
an artificial light of wax or oil, far from weakening this effect, only renders it the more powerful. It is,
indeed, the completion of the theory on this subject, that the yellow of artificial lights, by adding to the
intensity of the red, orange and yellow, increases their brilliancy, whilst the yellow produces a contrary
effect on the blue, which, as it repels it, becomes only the more retreating.
ASIATIC ART.
NDER this title of Asiatic art, as the second of the two fertile sources from which modern art
has derived its models, we include all the decorative arts of what is usually called the East, as
well as of the extreme East. This arrangement comprises in the same class the productions of
very different periods, the most ancient of which may even surpass in antiquity the work of
the Egyptians themselves, whilst the most recent are almost contemporary with ourselves. Considered
however in its general features this vast subject is less complicated than would appear at first sight.
The traditional immobility of the East, where the processes of fabrication and the practices of art are
transmitted faithfully from generation to generation, frequently renders it extremely difficult to assign a
precise date to any one production. And, indeed, unless it be as a matter of curiosity, or as affecting the
real value of the object, there attaches usually but little interest to such an investigation, at least with
regard to the general characters of the ornamentation which modern decorators have taken with more
or less sincerity from ancient models, frequently producing the most complete illusion.
Freed in this way from the necessity of a minute chronological examination, our short treatise may
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16 POLY CHROMATIC OR NA MENT.
confine itself to broad divisions describing the primary and original styles which predominate over
the lesser divisions and personal modifications.
From our special point of view, without entering into the examination of very interesting ethno-
graphical questions, beyond the scope of our book as well as of our ability, we recognize three principal
groups or families: the Chinese family, the Indian family, and the Arabian family. (See Anquetil
Duperron and Champollion Figeac, “Histoire de la Perse.”) -
The group comprising China and Japan, will be treated first and alone, as befits its genius
and history.
Then returning to the East, properly so called, we will examine separately the two great
Indian and Arabian traditions, going over their distinctive characteristics, and also their points of
meeting. The principal point of union in these is to be found in Persian art, which came originally
from India, but was much modified by the Mahomedan style on the triumph of Islam and the
Arab conquest.
CHINESE AND JAPANESE.
PLATES X. To XV.
Chinese.
# URNING to the Chinese, a nation of the highest antiquity, we find that, during its long existence,
# this people, or rather this world, seems to have neither given nor received anything from
other civilizations from time immemorial; it has always sufficed for itself, and in this
immobility and isolation, which form its originality, it has created a style for itself,
without any relation to the productions of other nations, if, however, we except certain geometric
combinations which instinct has given to every known race.
The extreme fancifulness of their ornamental compositions, and the want of order and method
usually seen in them, may be understood if we consider that the Chinese have no architectural art
in our sense of the word, no archetype of idealization, giving rise to ornaments in which even the
most insignificant designs are invested with a character of grandeur, as is amply exemplified in
Egyptian ornamentation. “This absence of architecture,” says M. de Chavannes de la Giraudière,
“is in the genius of the Chinese nation. This people seems bound to occupy itself exclusively with
details, and this too in everything. The conception of a monumental building is above its comprehension.”
We will complete this observation by saying that the light and graceful dwellings of the Chinese
are all derived from the idea of the tent, the instability and size of which exclude the grander
characters of architecture. This circumstance has certainly contributed largely amongst the Chinese
to leaving the arts of design in a simple and rudimentary state, and it likewise explains why we so
rarely meet with simplicity and amplitude in their ornamentations.
Amongst the Chinese, moreover, variety constitutes the first element of beauty. In their ornamental
screens, leaves following each other bear no resemblance; by the side of a compartment repre-
senting a landscape there will be another of brilliant colours, and covered with metallic arabesques.
They take the greatest pains to avoid the straight line and right angle, or, to disguise them when they do
make use of them, they torture the imagination, or rather give free play to their disordered imagination,
in their curiously shaped furniture, the real intention of which they endeavour to conceal by a pretence
of a totally different destination.
To such conceptions, so different from our own, and so completely destitute of the conditions
of true grandeur that any change of proportion is at once fatal to the design, and in which, except
for a screen or a blind, the interest it may excite is with difficulty maintained, we must add that
the Chinese pay no attention to the laws of perspective, and do not understand the play of
shadows or of chiaroscuro.
And yet, notwithstanding so many conditions of fundamental inferiority, their ornament is
* Pagodas and triumphal arches, excessively numerous in China, are the only exceptions to this rule. The pagodas, nearly all
constructed on the same model, only differ from each other in height, richness of ornament and beauty of materials. They alone are of a really
monumental character. , (“Les Chinois,” by H. de Chavannes de la Giraudière.) Chinese palaces, notwithstanding the dimensions and rich
decorations of some of them, have scarcely any other character.


CHINES E AND JAPA NESE ART. 17
treated with so much imagination, their colouring is so rich, and they make such a varied and
charming use of it, that in certain particular applications, such as keramics, incrustations, and woven
materials, their productions are models of harmony and effect, which have remained in many points
superior to the works of other nations.
Their defects are the source of good qualities which correspond to them, and one effect of
their capricious mobility is that they are full of resources, making an ornament out of everything,
from the cloud and the wave, the shell and the rock, from the animated world of reality as well as
that of fancy, from flowers in every variety and wrought woods, the flaming thunderbolt and the
sparkling insect, from vases of every shape and objects of every form, crystals, scrolls, writing, &c.
To these ornamental resources, at once so rich and so varied, may be added a certain number
of time-honoured figures, having in general a symbolical signification. Amongst these may be
mentioned the dragons, monsters armed with powerful claws and having a frightful head with
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formidable-looking teeth, so many varieties of which are to be met with in Chinese compositions:
dragons with scales, winged, horned, without horns, rolling over themselves before taking their
flight into higher regions. Another of these symbols is the dog of Fo, whose claws, sharp teeth
and curly mane constitute a lion, modified by fancy; also the sacred horse; the Fong-Hoang, a
singular bird, with its head adorned with caruncles, a silky neck, and a tail between that of an
argus and a peacock, whose presence is of happy augury; then the white stag, the axis, the crane,
the mandarin duck, all figures which have their own proper interpretation in Chinese decoration.
It is a singular circumstance that this art, which appears so capricious and chimerical in its
conceptions, is characterized in its execution by such an immutability of proceeding and faithfulness
of transmission in the representation of things, that it frequently requires the lapse of hundreds of
years before even the slightest modification can be perceived.
This phenomenon may be merely the effect of the essentially imitative and traditional instinct
of this isolated civilization, so advanced in some points, so barbarous in others, but always consistent
to itself. Perhaps, also, this fidelity in the observance of the same proceeding in the employment
of forms and colours comes from some mysterious rules, some sort of ritual, perpetuated through so
many ages.
This last explanation may find its confirmation in a sort of symbol of forms and fundamental
D


18 POLY CHROMATIC OR NAMENT,
colours, an analysis of which we borrow from the learned work of M. Jacquemart, “Les Merveilles
de la Céramique.”
“The colours are fixed at five in the “Memorial of Rites,” 2205 years B. c. They are to be found in the Tcheou-li (Rites dating from
the twelfth to the eighth century before the Christian era).
“The work of embroiderers in colours consists in combining these five colours.
“The side on the east is blue. The side on the south is red. The side on the west is white. The side on the north is black. The
side towards the sky is blackish blue. The side of the earth is yellow. The blue combines with the white. The red combines with the
black. The blackish blue combines with the yellow.
“The earth is represented by the yellow colour; its special figure is the square. The sky varies according to the seasons.
“Fire is represented by the figure of a circle. Water is represented by the figure of a dragon. Mountains are represented
by a deer.
y “Birds, quadrupeds, reptiles are represented according to nature.”
The imperial livery has changed according to the dynasties; it has been white, then green,
it is now yellow for the Tai-Tsing dynasty, still reigning in China.
If we now examine Chinese art relatively to the principal categories placed at the head of this
historical sketch, we find in it a mixture of the ideal and imitative elements; but the latter used
in a conventional manner.
The colouring is also conventional, not in the least subject to any imitation of natural colours,
and in this respect the chromatics of the Chinese (which possibly obey laws of another kind) possess
complete liberty.


CHINES E AND JAPANES E A RT. 19
The applications of ornament in Chinese art are most varied. -
All movable light objects, such as blinds, screens, boxes, fans, &c., are especially adapted for
Chinese decoration.
The manufacture of woven fabrics also finds in it many very effective subjects.
The lineal element of the meanders is employed with such marked superiority in the incrusted
bronzes and the cloisonné enamels as would alone suffice to raise the art of the Chinese to a high
rank, even if their keramics did not place them first in that branch of art.
In the decorations of the Kaolinic pottery, the genius of the Chinese has soared to its greatest
height. They excel in throwing in cartouches of every shape, being sometimes of unequal dimensions, at
others regular, round, oval, polygonal, imitating the outline of a fruit or leaf, or very frequently of a fan,
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and they dispose them as if by chance on grounds of geometrical construction. They people these
enclosed spaces with landscapes, containing manufacturing buildings, mountains, rocks, groups of flowers,
and fantastic or real animals. This art is considered to have reached its greatest height between 1465 and
1487, a period when the most curious combinations were to be seen.
In our days China is in a state of decay, the causes of which are complex, the principal being,
certainly, the excessive division of labour, as it is now practised. Father d'Entrecolles tells us that
in one manufactory, “the occupation of one man, is merely to form the first coloured circle near
the edge of the porcelain; another sketches flowers which a third paints; one is for water and
mountains, another for birds, another for animals, and so on.”
With such methods, all individuality disappears. Thus, the Chinese themselves attach a far
higher value to the old works, especially in bronzes, enamels, and vases, than to the new, which are
little more than imitations.
Japanese.—Japanese art is an offspring from the Chinese, but is distinguished by a greater indivi-
duality, as they seem to have escaped the danger of the excessive division of artistic labour as it is practised
in modern China. The Japanese have developed the study of nature, especially in birds, with more
truthfulness and power of observation than their ancestors or rivals, which renders their imitative


20 POLYCHROMATIC OR NAMENT.
style less conventional. However, it must be confessed that if their delicate productions have added
fresh charms to the old Chinese keramics, they frequently lose much of the vigour of the finest
periods. Decoration sometimes requires a voluntary roughness, and a soberness in the use of means,
of which they have not always felt the excellence. To the Chinese colours the Japanese have added
their own, and it is this which serves principally to distinguish the productions of the two countries.
The art of the Japanese is at present tending towards fresh developments; their ornamentation,
better regulated than it was, is in the hands of skilful draughtsmen, who observe nature, know how to
round off their forms, and understand the laws of perspective. One of the principal causes of the general
progress is to be found in the fact of the incredible profusion with which models of all sorts, conceived
by really good artists, and carved in wood, are distributed among the public. There lies an element of
progress from a certain point of view, but which can perhaps scarcely be continued without some detriment
to the originality, until now so distinct, of Chinese and Japanese productions.
Chinese Cartouches.
APPENDIX ON CHROMATICS.
#|E have given an extract from the “Memorial of Chinese Rites,” which would possess
- merely an archaeological interest if it were not for the fact that under this symbolism the
soundest laws of chromatics are concealed.
The symbolism of colours, enunciated by the “Chinese Rites,” is in reality nothing but a
statement of the only primitive colours recognized by painters, which Ziegler (in his “Histoire de la
Céramique”) has brought out clearly from the spectral combinations, setting aside the blendings of
the latter as misleading.
These primitive colours are:—1st, yellow; 2nd, red; 3rd, blue, undecomposable; 4th, black, which,
unless absolutely negative, that is to say, arising from the absence of light, is acknowledged to be
the maximum of intensity in every primitive colour (for there are blacks of all sorts), and which
consequently becomes the most powerful generating principle; 5th, white, undecomposed light, which is the
maximum of brilliancy in every colour.
We may learn much by studying the different gradations of colours as these masters in harmony
have understood them, as following each other in systematic order. This study must be accompanied by


JA PA NES E A R T. 21
observation of the means employed, either for isolating the colours or for uniting them, means applied some-
times in an absolute manner and sometimes according to the need and nature of the colouring, by using
simultaneously every method of isolation and of uniting of colour at the same time.
In the cloisonné enamels, Plates XI. and XII., the gilded outline is a medium both of separa-
tion and of union.
In Plate XIII. and the lower part of Plate XIV, the white outline is a medium of isolation
(the most powerful for this purpose) and is quite indispensable; it is only the intense blue of the
one and the dark green of the other which can do without it.
In the upper part of Plate XIV. the outlines are reddish brown or black, sometimes weak or
entirely wanting; this is just what was required for procuring lightness of ground with proportioned
intensities, without injuring the delicacy of the objects represented. It may be seen that this ap-
propriation of outlines deserves special study; for supposing them altered or suppressed, the subjects
would be entirely spoiled, and the combination of the colours employed rendered quite impossible.
The application of the same principle may be seen in the running patterns forming Plate XV., which
closes this series.
INDIAN – ARABIAN AND MOORISH-PERSIA.N.
PLATES XVI. To XXX.
Indian.
#|LTHOUGH less isolated than the Chinese, and coming more into contact with the rest of
| the world, Indian civilization, notwithstanding its extreme antiquity, has not experienced
those changes which mark the history of so many other nations.
The social and religious organizations, priests, temples, castes, sacred books, poetry,
manners, doctrines and superstitions still remain much as they were amongst the Hindoos, whom even
the conquest of their country, has been unable to deprive of their own distinctive character and
institutions.
Art must naturally have shared to a great degree in this characteristic immobility, and notwith-
standing some unimportant modifications, which a glance at Arabian and Persian art will enable us better
to understand, the substance of Indian decoration may still be defined by certain salient features which
have undergone no fundamental alteration.
The most striking of these characteristics are perhaps the continuity and plenitude of decoration
which usually entirely fills up the surface to be decorated with a profusion of ornaments either exactly
alike or of similar nature; the design being in general a simple repetition of the same subject. The
colour of the ground, always warm and harmonious, occasionally light though more frequently dark,
serves to unite the designs, besides being the principal agent in the general effect. This method of
distribution, applied with an admirable feeling for colour, procures in Indian decoration a richness and
calm which give an indefinable sensation of repose, and the only fault in which would be monotony, if
this powerful unity could leave room for a desire or a need for greater variety.
The designs themselves are nearly all taken from the floral world treated in a conventional manner,
in which, however, although the generalized type predominates over the varieties of the species, the


22 POLYCHROMATIC' ORNAMENT.
imitation bears a closer resemblance to nature than in most of the styles we have studied until now,
Without any servile imitation, the model is generally easily recognized, and although the floral ornament
is sometimes seen under the pure, hard form of the Egyptian
style, it is more frequently treated with a pliancy of execution
and picturesqueness which makes it bear a closer resemblance to
the modern style.I
This execution however never attains to rounding off of
forms, a process in general foreign to the decoration of surfaces
amongst the Orientals, it is usually confined to silhouette draw-
ings in which the outline is usually shown off by a darker tint
on light grounds, and by a lighter colour on dark grounds.
We believe that we are not mistaken in giving these
characteristics as typical of the primary and original form of
Indian decoration, a form still predominant, notwithstanding the
more frequent intervention of the constructive element, borrowed
fi'om the Arabs, and modified by the Persians, whose style, as
we shall see presently, may be considered as the point of
meeting and of union of the two great Arabian and Indian
streams.
In recapitulating the points which unite these three arts
we shall have to add a few words on the colouring of Indian
ornament.
Arabian—After the Indian style we come to that of the
Arabs, which would appear to be posterior to the Indian,
according to the general rule which causes the human mind
to proceed from the simple to the complex.
Endowed with great genius, but forced to set aside any
direct contact with nature from the prescription of the Koran,
“Thou shalt make no images,” the Arabs have substituted
for the almost exclusively floral decoration of the Indians, the
_ constructed ornament, the framing of which was an amusement to
Indian palm ' their geometrical minds, and the principal of which is that Star
of Solomon, so much varied and enriched with secondary motives.
The continuity of the ornament entirely filling the surface is to be seen here as amongst the
Indians, and in both styles nothing can be taken away without occasioning an unseemly void; the means
employed, however, are difi'erent, and, whilst the mere repetition of subjects frequently suflices in
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Indian Sandal.
Indian decoration, the Arabian ornament on the contrary is built up and bound together in all its
parts; everything is connected, and in rose-work, for example, from the circumference to the centre all
the interlacings take a common root in the ornament itself.
This imaginative construction is frequently double, that is to say, formed by two complete systems

1 The Indian palm comes, more than any other element of floral decoration employed by the Indians, into the conventional style, as
may be seen by the above figure. It is of very frequent recurrence in modern decoration, whether as an ornament symmetrically repeated
in the borders, or as a sort of cartouche thrown into the midst of a floral design. It. appears to belong to the lndo-Arabian style.


ARABIAN ART. 23
which follow each other to an end without confusion, but in which the meetings and overlappings
produce incidental figures, intersections, and alternations relieved by colour from the ground, amidst
the interlacings of foliage.
Notwithstanding this learned complication, Arabian decoration remains clear and distinct, thanks
to the purity and fineness of the lines, and the general rule excluding all superfluity; and thanks,
also, to the principle observed in the construction of the roses, which consists in reserving the wider
Star of Solomon.
Ornaments of Arabian construction.
(Designs taken from the “Architecture arabe,” by P. Coste. Paris, Firmin Didot.)
expansions for the extremities of the circumference, leaving to the radiating centre from which they
diverge the fine work which throws out boldly, and fixes the eye on the key to the whole composition,
as the central point of the circle.
We must add that the Arabians appear to have been the inventors of the ingenious design
producing a double effect, the silhouette of which has two exteriors, tracing with a single line two
opposite figures, as may be seen in No. 14 of Plate XVI. of Indian manufacture, though in the
Arabian or Persian style, and also in Nos. 7 and 11 of Plate XXI. (Persian manufacture).
Arabian Rose-work.
But with a style thus conceived, what became of the floral element so valuable in decorative art?
In the primitive Arabian style, unmixed with Persian, the flower properly so called is not to
be found, but in its place come other forms resembling it, and appearing directly inspired by nature.
This sort of subject, half-way between imaginary conceptions and the representation of flowers properly
so called, does not merely come in to terminate scrolls, as amongst the Greeks; they form an integral
part of the decoration, and (as Owen Jones justly remarks in his “Grammar of Ornament”), they do not
break the lineal net-work, they continue by constantly enlarging it.


24 POL YCHROMA TIC ORNAMENT.
Thus conceived and employed, the ornamental forms of the Arabs, in the original state and
without Persian intermixture, being still more conventional than those of the Greeks, are of purely
decorative conception, and are beyond and above nature.
To complete this rapid sketch of Arab ornament, we must add that it is completely free from
a symbolism which was forbidden by their law. The Arabs consequently replaced symbolical writing
by the use of real writing. Nothing is more common than to find running inscriptions in Cufic
characters or running hand, forming a part of the decoration and producing the happiest effect; sometimes,
indeed, they are introduced with such profusion that there is in existence one monument faced with glazed
bricks in which the whole Koran runs through the arabesques.
Such are the principal features of this severe yet beautiful art, so strongly impressed with the
Arabian genius that the term Arabesque still applies to the whole style of ornament which other
nations have appropriated whilst recognizing its origin.
When speaking of Persian and Byzantine art we shall have occasion to say a few words on
the contact of Arabian art with the Asiatic, and also with Greek and Greco-Roman art. Asia
Minor, so frequently traversed by the conquerors of Persia, India, Egypt, and Syria, would offer
many models well fitted to inspire them. But whatever may have been the effect of this contact,
and without entering into the question of what the Arabs received and what they imparted, we
believe that we see in their decorative system an original creation which belongs to themselves alone,
and which furnished the primitive types before those fusions and meetings which may have modified
it and given it intermediate styles.
illoorish.—Before altogether leaving Arabian art, we must speak of what it became in the hands
of the Spanish Moors. It is merely a continuation of our subject; for the Moorish style, with a
few distinguishing peculiarities of its own, belongs to the Arabian
family. The mode of construction, the forms of ornament (especially
the elegant Arabian feather), and the frequent use of inscriptions,
‘ are so many points in common between the Moorish genre and the
“inmflln W x» I 1 " pure Arabian style, which is seen to most advantage in the buildings
WWW-W" I H , it of Cairo.
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.-
As a peculiar characteristic, we may mention in Moorish decora-
tion, the more frequent use of a third ground placed over the two
others and serving as a frame-work and link between them. It is
slightly projecting, and is a real element of construction, sufficing
without further change, to produce the open-work of which the Moors
make such frequent use.
From a polychromatic point of view, the Moorish decoration is
distinguished by a very generally adopted system, based on the prin-
cipal employment of the three primary undecomposable colours, blue,
red, and yellow represented by gold. In the facings and pavements, which assisted so well in
developing the geometrical inventions of the Moors the colours are more numerous, and green plays
often an important part.
It would be superfluous from our point of view and in the restricted limits of our work to dilate more
fully on this Moorish art, the admirable monuments of which, constantly studied by the architect as well
as by the decorator, have been so frequently described and analyzed.
Persian.—The recent labours of philology authorize us in supposing, that, in some unknown time of
antiquity the whole of Iran belonged to the Indian family (Persia was the name of one of the provinces of
Iran, and the temporary dominion of the Persians caused the name to be afterwards given to the whole) and
that the origin of the civilization of Iran can be recognized only through that of India and its conquering
dynasties. (See Champollion-Figeac, “Histoire de la Perse.”) M. Batissier also remarks: “Persia has
almost always formed a province of the vast empires founded by the different conquerors of Asia. Its
history is thus intermingled with that of other nations.”
What is true and historical with regard to the Arab, Seljookian Turk, Ottoman and Mongol invaders of
Persia, is probably true also with regard to earlier invaders. But, beyond these historical conjectures on
which we need give no opinion, a view of the productions of the two civilizations is a surer guide to us in
ascribing an Indian origin to Persian ornament, which element became in time a firm tradition, and was
afterwards blended with Arabian art.



Arabian Feather.


PERSIA. N. A. R.T. - 25
From before the conquest which, next to the circumstance of the vicinity of the two races, brought
about this latter period, the Persians were celebrated by their love of pomp and the perfection of their
decorative arts. Thus, when after the defeat of the last of the Chosroes, the victorious Arabs took
possession of Madayn, then the capital of Persia, these inhabitants of tents were much struck by the
magnificent buildings, the luxury of the apartments and the ornaments of every kind which fell into their
hands. In the seventh century of our era, the Persians were living in splendour which seems to equal
the most marvellous descriptions in the Rāmāyana of ancient India (fifteenth century before the Christian
era), accounts which are confirmed by Strabo, Arrianus and Megasthenes.
In the state in which we best know Persian art, at the period of its greatest splendour, the outlines
are in general taken from the conceptions of Arabian architecture, modified both by Indian tradition and
the peculiar genius of the Persian race, which tended towards a less compressed and austere style with more
freedom and elegance than the Arabs possessed, and obtaining by its double derivation the elements of a
greater variety.
Persian Inscription.
The floral element is employed in both its aspects, sometimes scattered through the decoration
with apparent freedom, at others inserted in the lineal network, and usually placed at the intersection
of lines; but, even in the latter case it is always treated in a manner which is a medium between the high
Arab conventionality and the Indian quasi-naturalism.
We must likewise add, that, unlike the Arabs, who belonged to the sect of Omar, the Persian
schismatics, drinkers of wine, belonging to the sect of Ali, and accustomed to attribute to flowers a
symbolical language in the bouquets called Salams, do not exclude the representation of flowers in their
decoration, which is also animated by real and fantastic animals, and sometimes, though more rarely, by the
human figure. -
If, owing to these peculiarities, we usually succeed in distinguishing the productions of Arabian
* We read in Costa (“Architecture Arabe”): “When after the battle of Kadesia (in the year 15 of the Hegira, 637 A.D.), the Arabs went
towards Madayn, crowns, bracelets, golden necklaces . . . . fell into the hands of their commander, who divided the whole amongst his soldiers
in conformity with the dispositions of the Koran. Amongst these objects was a carpet of sixty ells in length, of magnificent texture,
representing a garden in which the flowers were precious stones woven into the fabric. The general-in-chief being doubtful as to the value of
the booty, sent it to Omar, expressing a wish that it should be sold to the highest bidder, and the value distributed according to the law.
Omar paid no attention to this request, and caused the rich carpet to be divided into pieces and distributed in equal portions. One portion,
which fell to Ali, was sold by him for the sum of 20,000 drachmas.” Comp. Gibbon, “Decline and Fall,” chap. 51.
* The Persians are so fond of flowers that with them general rejoicings take place at the season for the flowering of tulips, a flower so
frequently represented on their earthenware and enamelled bricks.
E


26 POLYCHROMATIC ORNAMENT.
art (not, however, without some difliculty, and we may cite our Plates XXVII. and XXVIII. taken
from the same copy of the Koran, as being strongly intermixed with Persian and Arabic), there is, in
some cases, far more difliculty in deciding on the Indian or Persian origin of certain fabrics and
manuscripts. Many miniature paintings in particular come from India, where they were painted by
Persians, who being sectaries of Zoroaster, and emigrating before the invasion of Islam, settled in
India under the name of Parsees.
As an example of a fabric Persian in manufacture and Indian in style, we may call attention to
the chintz represented in Plate XX. which gives us an almost complete idea of the Indo-Persian flora
in a state of semi-liberty. Large radiating flowers expand on twisted stalks, ananas, pinks, nuts,
pomegranates, honeysuckles, poppies, daisies, flowerets of every sort, a whole botanical world, in
short, peoples this composition, which is also animated by birds of all sizes, and even quadrupeds
running along slight trailwork. According to M. Jacquemart, the representation of the peacock and
fern fronds would show the origin to be exclusively Indian, which is not disproved by the hooked
nose, the almond-shaped eyes, and arched eyebrows of the flying genii bearing the stamp of the
Indian race.
To the resources resulting from this mixed style, the Persians added those of great manual skill
and a most remarkable fertility. Damasceners, bookbinders, potters, embroiderers, miniature painters,
emulated each other in taste and skill.
Persian carpets are still considered the finest in the world, dishes, vases and enamelled bricks
from that country are still such models in taste, that European art seeks them out, and our
manufacturers endeavour to equal them by imitation. The Persian damascenings determined the
type of that style of decoration during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of our era, a period
corresponding to the reign of Shah Abbas the Great, which terminated in 1628, and is considered
to be the apogee of Persian art.



The various Indian, Arabian and Persian styles which have just passed in review before us,
and which have already so many points in common, in respect to composition and forms, resemble
each other particularly in the use they make of polychromatic decoration.
Thus the remark that we have already made on the subject of Indian productions, where no
attempt at rounding-off the figures is to be found, is equally applicable to all Oriental productions.
The rule is a silhouette drawing with geometrical outlines relieved by conventional colouring
on a dominant and generating ground. I Attention to this ruIe produces brilliancy and repose, when
the design is well combined and the colours happily, chosen. The varied scales rise from the
colour of the ground, either black, white slightly tinted, blue, red, yellow and flesh-colour, with mediums
of isolation or union, varied according to the nature of the production, but always aided by flat
tints, and with striking outlines of every shade from black to white, according to circumstances.
The Persians are especially skilful in this manner of treating and varying these ornamental
resources, and from them the best lessons in decorative colouring may be obtained. (See the two
carpets, Plates XXIII. and XXV. and the earthenware, Plate XXII. in which the prevailing colour
is green, the favourite colour of Mahomed.)


PERSIA.N. A. R.T. 27
The use of gold takes an important place in the bas-relief ornamentation of the Moors, in
which the three primary colours, fused together by the judicious play of light on the paler parts,
form the basis. (See Plate XXX.)
This use of gold is also interesting in the paintings of Plates XXIV. XXVII. and XXVIII, but its
effect becomes altogether charming, as we see it in a constellated and studded state, scattered over the
productions of the modern Indians. (See Plate XIX.) In the parti-coloured grounds, passing
from black to white, from red to green, peculiarly Hindoo in style, changing colours with the
design, which undergoes in its details a similar reversing of colour, the Indians succeed in neu-
tralizing the most glaring intensities into a general harmony, by means of gold which, thrown over
the rawness of the colours, seems to unite and warm and, as it were, blend them into one, like a
transparent veil interwoven with gold.
BY ZANT INE.
PLATES XXI. TO XXXVII.
#|E treat this important style apart, as not entering completely into any of our three great
#| divisions, Ancient, Asiatic, and Western art, but serving as a sort of link between the two
former, on the one hand, to a union of which it owes its origin, and the third, on the other
hand, which it has long continued to inspire.
Byzantine art may, indeed, be considered as a product of the degenerate art of the Greeks,
combined with that of the Asiatics. This union must have been occasioned by the conquest of a
part of Asia by the Romans, who, becoming more and more curious
in decorative magnificence, found in the East fresh elements to satisfy
their sumptuous tastes. The exact nature of these elements, their
character and importance, however, still remain very doubtful.
Before the time of Islam, which seems to have developed their
genius as well as their power, the Arabs must have possessed an
original art; but of this only a few traces remain in legends, in
which grand buildings are spoken of which go back to remote
antiquity. In consequence of some catastrophe, perhaps an inunda-
tion, they are said to have come up into Africa and Asia, and to
have founded several kingdoms in Syria, amongst others that of Hira,
the architectural luxury and riches of which town form the object
of marvellous recitals in these legends. (See Coste, “Architecture
arabe.”). It is moreover known that the wandering and stationary
tribes called each other by the name of Felt people and Clay people, |''|
which indicates with respect to the latter the existence of keramics, ' % #==== *IN
the decoration of which is unknown, as well as that of their arms, # $# *NZ-TV'NG): '
their fabrics and fixed dwellings. We may conclude from these £2'> |
traditions that an Arab art of African origin was transplanted into Dai" in the chard of M*
Asia in consequence of some emigration of unknown date; that (Byzantine style.)
this art must have undergone modifications, of the importance of
which we cannot judge, on their contact with the Greeks as on that with the Indians and Persians,
and must have formed an important part in the compromise called by the name Byzantine.
Subsequently, at a period posterior to the greatest time of Byzantine art, and under the influence
of Islam, when Arabian art took the form under which we now know it, there may well have been,
in some applications and in various points of contact, a certain Byzantine influence exercised on
Arab practice; but it would be an exaggeration to refer to Byzantine art, as is sometimes done, the
very origin and formation of the Arab style, which has too much character and unity, not to be essentially,
and in its principal lines, an original conception. The truth appears to be that there was a mutual
*
Ż
* See Notices of Plates XXXIV. and XXXVI.


28 POLYCHROMATIC ORNAMENT.
influence exercised, as inevitably happens in this sort of contact; but that if the Arabs received anything
in this exchange, it may be said that they were partly taking back their own from an art which had
drawn so largely from Oriental sources, both in its first formation and also in the period of its
greatest development.‘
However this may be, an important place in the history of ornament belongs to the Byzantine
art, which, after having united the two great Greco-Latin and Asiatic currents, spread on one side
over the north-east, where it even now determines the style of Russian ornaments, and in the other


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Byzantine Ornaments. (Theotokos Church, at Constantinople.)
(After Gailhabaud.)
into our west, where, combined with the peculiar aptitudes of nations of Celtic, Latin, and Lombard
origin, it furnished the elements of the Romanesque style; and lastly, by a fresh contact with eastern
art, at the period of the Crusades, took its part in the formation of the Gothic style.
The construction of ornament is less complicated with the Byzantines than with 'the Arabs.
The logic in it is the same, but less carried to its full consequences; overlapping is far more rare,
and in accordance with Greek principles it is generally satisfied with a single ground.
The palmate flowers spreading out from the stems, the generic form of which is immediately
derived from the Greek vases, are precisely similar in their outline to those of the Arabian ones ; but their
indented design has not the fulness of that of the latter, and they have likewise fewer resources; but
although the beauty of design in the details is not so great, the decorative effects are broadly conceived;
and still show with advantage the influence of the Greek principles. In coloured Byzantine ornament,
with simple well-ordered silhouettes, where the area of a generating ground is much more unembarrassed
than with the Asiatics, there is always some repose for the eye. The foliage is refined, and the floral
developments conform to the laws of nature. A flora in rich and ample forms sometimes assumes
the highest decorative importance. See Plate XXXI. Nos. 31, 32; Plate XXXIII. Nos. 9, 14, 18,
19, 23, 24; and Plate XXXV. No. 4.




Border taken from a Book of the Gospels, of the eighth century.
(Taken from “Arts au Moym dgc,” by P. Lacroix. Paris, Firmin Didot.)
In this style, however, the variety is extreme, and under the union of two original arts we
can perceive all the resources of individual effort and a knowledge of every style. We sometimes
find a decorated ground, borders composed in the style of the Indians, and with only the floral
ornaments employed by them: in these the richest effect is produced by a repetition of a single
design by mere juxtaposition (see Plate XXXIV. Nos. 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8). Sometimes, besides the regular
repetition which forms the rule, the Byzantines practise symmetry as understood by the Greeks, that
is to say, produced by the equivalence of forces, and not by the mere repetition of the whole subject
placed side by side or reversed (see Plate XXXI. Nos. 30, 32; Plate XXXV. No. 6).

1 On the founding of Byzantium, Constantine had summoned Asiatic artists, and at a later time a great number (during the reign of
Justinian) worked under the Greek artists, Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore the Milesian, at the construction of St. Sophie's, and the other
monuments of the Justinian period, which in consequence bear traces of their influence.


BYZANTINE A. R. T. 29
The geometric arrangements of the Byzantines are most ingenious and especially remarkable in mo-
saics, the monotony of which they combat by well-conceived, complicated constructions. They depend
usually on a play of the straight line and the right angle. For these constructions see Plate XXXIII.
Nos. 1, 5, 6; Plate XXXVI. Nos. 13, 14, 15, 16, &c.; and Plate XXXVII. Nos. 7 and 23.
The Byzantine geometric mosaics are distinguished from the Latin mosaics by this construction
forming an integral part of the design. Amongst the Latins, construction is in general exterior, that
is to say, produced by means of architectural lines formed by mosaic work, which is nothing more
than a filling up, executed with the simple square or triangle of rudimentary marquetry. We here
give a few examples which will assist in explaining the differences. These fragments come from
the church of St. Lawrence beyond the walls, at Rome; we take them from “Monuments anciens et
modernes,” by M. Gailhabaud. M. Lenoir speaks of them in the following terms: “These fine
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Mosaics of the Bishop's Throne, at St. Lawrence beyond the walls.
(After Gailhabaud.)
mosaics, hardly to be met with elsewhere than in Italy, presented great difficulties in execution, as much
because they are laboriously incrusted in marble, as because, on account of the geometrical designs
which they form and their small dimensions, they required extreme precision in the adjustment. This
sort of work had great success during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, especially
in all the Roman States; and certain churches, such, for example, as that of Orvieto, have some on
a part of their façades; the great cloisters of the churches of St. Paul beyond the walls, and of
St. John of Lateran at Rome are covered with the richest designs executed in this manner . . . . .
oriental pavements, which ancient authors called opus Alexandrinum, and which were in use in the
churches of the East and of the West from the earliest ages of Christianity down to the middle ages."
The Byzantine design and, consequently, its colouring, are entirely conventional. A very feeble


30 POLYCHROMATIG ORNAMENT.
attempt at rounding off the figures may be noticed in the so-called Greek manuscripts and in the
mosaics in Sicily, which are a direct imitation of the former. Everywhere else the artist proceeds
by even tones simply opposed to one another on a generating ground, as everywhere in the East.
Amongst the Byzantines, ornament, properly so called, has no symbolic character, with the
exception of the cross, which is multiplied under various figures, more or less differing from the historic
type. However, we frequently find apocalyptic animals, and human or celestial figures bearing
religious meaning. ‘
WESTERN ART.
".N considering Western art we must be guided by a chronological order instead of the
" ethnological one, which we have so far followed. We distinguish three great principal
periods :—1st, the Middle Ages, 2nd, the Renaissance, 3rd, the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, and particularly the history of French art during the latter period._


MIDDLE AGES.
CEL'ric— Rommsour. —GOTHIC.
PLATES XXXVIII 'ro LI.
Celtic.
E have already said that Byzantine art, when spreading over the East, must have found
amongst the nations of Celtic race, an indigenous art arising from the peculiar aptitudes of
that race.
It appears, indeed, difficult not to perceive this character of originality in what is
termed Celtic ornamentation, to which we have devoted two Plates, XXXVIII. and XXXIX. (see the
notices on those plates), and of which the most remarkable monuments have been given in the interesting
work of Mr. Westwood (“Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts ”). This




Celtic Interlacings.
(After the “ Monument: anciens ct modernes,” by Gailhabaud.)


author sets aside both the supposition of a Roman origin—contradicted by the difference between the
regularly alternating interlacings of Latin mosaics with the knots of Celtic scrolls—and also that of a
Byzantine origin, which would be disproved by the want of similarity between the early Celtic design
and the ornamentation of St. Sophia’s, as published by Salzenberg; he draws a conclusion, then, in favour


32
POLYCHROMA TIC ORNAMENT.
became more striking from the more frequent addition of heads of quadrupeds and birds, serving as
terminals to the principal lines, which thus are made to represent bodies elongated out of all just
(Tenth century.)
Border taken from the Bible of St. Martin, of Limoges.
(Taken, as are the two other borders, from the “ Arts au Mayan dye,” of P. Lacroix.)




(Munich Library.)
pels, of the eleventh century.
Border taken from a Bookfof the Gos
proportion or probability, from which emerge feet or claws
corresponding with the head. Such as they are, these
fantastic and grotesque images constitute a separate art,
which interlacings alone could never have done (see Plate
XXXIX. Nos. 13, 15, 16). Precisely similar ones are
found on the sculptured stones of Great Britain and Scandi-
navia, which fact imparts to the old charters and missals,
whence our polychromatic examples are taken, the interest
of representing, under every aspect, an original and com-
plete style.
In Plate XXXIX. we have inserted examples taken
from the second and more fertile Celtic manner. The orna—
mental clasps and roses, Nos. 18, 22, are combined with
the greatest force. The initials on an open space, Nos. 19,
20, 21, equal the best works in iron. The initials on a
coloured ground, Nos. 34, 35, 36, 37, in their rich and
well-ordered fulness, in which the two elements, Celtic
and Byzantine, are happily balanced, are the most complete
expression of this ornamentation of the tenth century.
Vigour of design, skill in division, a constant logic, exfolia-
tions and expansions in conformance with the general rules,
are to be especially noticed in these compositions, as also
the results of light procured by the delicate colouring which
sets them off.
As in the east and amongst the Byzantines, the design
and colouring are entirely conventional; only a very weak
modelling can be noticed, which is merely meant to show
the roundness of the stems or calices from which emerge
heads or fresh branches, Nos. 19, 20, 21. No symbolic
meaning appears to have been attached to the Celtic orna-
ments, except, perhaps, in the designs, so frequently found,
without beginning or end, and which appear to be a symbol
of eternity. (See Plate XXXVIII. Nos. 8, 18, 23, 24, 31.)
This union of the Celtic and Byzantine styles did not
entirely give way to the Gothic style, with which it long
co-existed.
It furnished the types for the finest ornamentation of
glass and manuscripts, which, at this period—during the
eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, the most brilliant period of the middle ages—
resembled stained glass on a greatly reduced scale.
Even in the fifteenth century, direct traces may
be found in Italy of the Celtic style in the marginal vignettes then in fashion (see Plate XLIII.
Nos. 17, 18, 19, 20), and used concurrently with margins in the Latin style of the Renaissance.

‘\ c i » "cirrus: rim-I ~


‘i‘\Y““\“-‘\ '_- u-.v'r~,.
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Border of a Lectionary 0f Metz Cathedral.



(Ninth century.)
In the greater part of our plates which belong to the middle ages, we can trace the combined
or isolated use of the two elements in this mixed style (Plates XL. to XLVI.)


WESTERN A R T. 33
Those examples which are of Latin or Lombard origin proceed more directly from the Byzantine.
The Romanesque style draws more impartially from both sources.
Thus, No. 1 in Plate XL. is derived from both styles: the two corners on a purple ground are
Celtic, as well as the parts of initials on a purple
ground, Nos. 13, 14, 15, 16; the remainder are 4's
'>
| # ": :
- £a-> *
Byzantine.
The Scandinavian paintings in Plate XLI. as
well as the enamels and fabrics, are of Byzantine
conception.
In the glass represented in Plates XLIV. and
XLV. the union or isolation of the two styles is
also easily to be recognized; in Nos. 1, 19, 28 of
the first, and Nos. 28, 29, and 30 of the second,
their union may be easily perceived. '%'N'
In Plates XLII. and XLIII. taken from manu- : ' £ P-.
scripts from Italy, where it is known that Byzantine *
art retained its sway longer than in the North of " " ".
Europe, although the former is plainly Byzantine, the second
contains examples of the change that was taking place on the
very eve of the great epoch of the Renaissance.
Pointed.—This style, long called Gothic, is now more
frequently termed the pointed style, on account of the pointed
arch in architecture producing its principal characteristics, even
when applied to ornament.
The term pointed arch is applied to one “formed by
two arcs of a circle of equal radius, which meet at their
summit and form a curvilinear angle.” (Batissier, “Histoire de l'Art monumental.”)
re-
|
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- - "-----
- " T.
# |- - - -
* * * * * . . . ."
Enamels on the front of the Altar of the Church of Comburg, in Germany. (Twelfth century.)
(Taken from “Monuments anciens et modernes,” by Gailhabaud.)
We shall merely remind our readers of the claims of which the invention of the pointed style
has been the object. Interesting examples of the intersection of the semi-circle may be found at
Mycene, in the Pelasgic tombs, and in some of the Roman monuments—amongst others, the aqueduct
of Tusculum; and, applied more broadly, we find it at Cairo in the Mosque of Ebn Touloun, built
F


WESTERN ART. 35
decoration. The Celtic forms are here found side by side with the Latin manner, in the same way
as architecture was already making use of the semi-circle and of the pointed arch.
Thus Nos. 26, 33, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, are Celtic. The introduction of the new element is seen
in the decoration of the columns, the whole of the shafts of which are ornamented with branches, scrolls
f
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57158
26 || 39 40 || 55
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Details of the Ogee mentioned at page 34. 62 65 Details of the Ogee mentioned at page 34.
5* 55
£5 f3 d6 as * I
£f 67 42 £6
45 15 &8 to
Plate XL.
and foliage (Nos. 15, 16, 37, 38), and the capitals of which (Nos. 47, 48, 49, 50), relieved by foliage,
sometimes bend down their crockets from the top of the corbel, at others lean over from top to bottom,
now alone, now united to the human figure, of which at other times (No. 51) an original use is made
as a support of the column itself.
On the other hand, in the friezes and borders we find the Greek fret-work (Nos. 17 and 18),
reversed zig-zags (No. 41), heads of nails hollowed out (No. 42), the teeth of a saw enriched with an
alternating vegetable ornament (Nos. 30, 31), and in all the other examples designs more or less
recalling the antique; heart-shaped leaves, ova, aquatic leaves, and rich plants, filling up the grounds with-
out leaving any interval.
In this Plate then, with the subjects (Nos. 45 and 46) occupying the corners and Nos. 1 to 16,
which are Byzantine or Celto-Byzantine from a contemporary manuscript, we find once more all the
imaginary and exotic types of ancient conventional flora in their latest forms, which were soon to be
replaced, in the Gothic period, by an indigenous flora.
In the stained glass represented in Plate XLIV. notwithstanding the fact that the outlines are
still Byzantine, an abandonment of ancient principles in ornamental details is clearly manifest. What
the isolated Celtic art, so firmly knit by the logic of its developments, gave promise of in the tenth
century, has now attained its full maturity. The types of the known conventional flora are elaborated
in a less restricted area, and its elegantly divided and widely-blossoming petals combine gracefully with
the constructive scroll foliage frequently utilized to limit alternating grounds. Sometimes this con-
structive element is a bare twisted branch (Nos. 16, 38); sometimes the windings are double and the
two branches cross each other (Nos. 6, 14, 36); there are some imbricated constructions (No. 35) and
some forming a quincunx (Nos. 4, 8, 9, 10); combinations in which the floral element alone comes
into play (Nos. 11, 24, 26), and braids (Nos. 22, 35) beaded or striped, and sometimes twisted like Celtic
knots. The constructive elements intermingling with the floral ones, which frequently issue from it
(Nos. 1, 15, 22, 35), divide or direct all their expansions.
The strict arrangement, the brilliancy and richness of the subjects chosen, the wisdom and variety
shown in the divisions, the force of the deductions and the vigour of the design, indicate that these
noble productions are the work of that hardy race which decided the superiority of Western Art.
From the close of the thirteenth century the ancient styles, some traces of which had lingered
until then in the details of ornaments, entirely disappeared from architecture, where the pointed
style ruled supreme, with some ingenious modifications which it would be beyond our limits to
describe. We will not then enumerate the various sorts of arches, sharply pointed, lancet-headed,
stilted, wide, trefoiled, concave, with a cyma recta, or a cyma reversa, and elliptical, which have been so
clearly analyzed in the Cahiers d'instructions published by the “Comité historique des arts et


36 POLYCHROMATIC OR NAMENT.
monuments,” in 1846, and which since that time have figured in every treatise on architecture.
We mention these although we have no time to dwell on them, because their outline is the generating
principle of all the ornaments depending on it. A study of the stained glass, Plate XLV. Proves
this fully. The curvilinear forms arranged on the inflexible square form the basis of these fourteenth
century designs, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15. In these examples the quatrefoils,
trefoils and roses are obtained from these outlines, constructed as in architecture; the second ground
Details of Cologne Cathedral. (From “Monuments anciens et modernes,” by Gailhabaud.)
of great fulness, on which these constructions impress a coloured silhouette, is taken from geometric
combinations, from Celtic interlaced designs and, as yet timidly, from the indigenous flora, to the exclusion
of all antique remembrances.
This style of ornament is quite original, not only in its forms but in its principles. Nowhere
§ -
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| O J. S.
i- |- |- | - __-__ - - - - |: -
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l -
Sculptured Gates of St. Alban's Abbey. (From Gailhabaud.)
| | || ||EEE
* 2×
'%'.
do the decorations of details flow so directly from the lines of architecture. The constructive element
of the ornament in Western hands is no longer a mere fiction, as in those of the Arabs, for example;
it imitates the real building and adopts its forms; all its details follow naturally from the principles
of the great architectural lines, so that the trefoil of a simple balustrade, or of the smallest panel
may enable us to determine the age and style of a whole building.
The details of these ornaments, which vary from the most rudimentary to the most luxuriant
caprices of the flowery or flamboyant style, assist in giving this idea of construction, without changing
the nature of the ornament, by following the architectural line.


WESTER N A R T. 37
By the side of this monumental art, so severe in its logic whilst capricious in its smaller details,
and of which stained glass, facings, enamels, tiled flooring, and sculpture in
relief, on stones, wood or iron, were during the middle ages the principal
and almost exclusive manifestations, there arose a beautiful branch of art,
induced by observation and the sentiment of the real, and obtained by naive
imitation of nature, in those numerous manuscripts to which such value is now
attached, and which take so important a part in the history of national arts.
Italy, the Low Countries and France possess the most curious specimens
of this new art, which, by opening a wider and more varied field to painting
in the domain of ornament, prepared the way for the great revival of the
sixteenth century.
Manuscript miniatures which at first resembled stained glass transferred
to parchment, or as Didron says, cartons à vitraux, afterwards produced a
poetic work contemporary with the stone poetry of the cathedrals. Inde-
pendence and simplicity form the charm of this commencement of picturesque
ornamentation. In the fifteenth century the principal elements were obtained
from flowers in which the indigenous species take a larger place than they
had yet occupied.
The ivy, ivy grape, vine, cinque-foil, water-lily, buttercup, oak, strawberry,
reed, mallow, cabbage, thistle, holly, endive, daisy, rose, pink, heartsease enamel
the border of the manuscripts. (See Plates XLVIII. and LI.)
“By the side of digitate, palmate or ternate leaves, there twine around
incised, lobed, sinuate and feathery forms” (see “Instructions du Comité des
arts et monuments”) intermingling with simple branches or with fruits some-
times easily to be recognized, sometimes difficult to name. Now and then the
butterfly and other insects are introduced to animate the floral world with
their many-coloured tints, and ingenious combinations occur of ribbons in large
folds (remains of the Celtic style) on which inscriptions are written.
A charming and inventive spirit animates this half fantastic, half real
world, which pervades the foliage of the decoration, in which during the
later periods, taste forms the only guide, as may be seen in Plates XLIX.
L. and LI. which terminate this series of the Middle Ages.
Border of a Latin Book of the Gospels
of the thirteenth century.
(Taken from “Arts au Moyen àge.”)


38 POLYC’HROMATIC' ORNAMENT.
RENAISSANCE.
PLATES LII. T0 LXXIII.
ITALY, even during the Middle Ages, never entirely lost the traces of ancient tradition
towards which her very origin and her genius ever led her, although at certain periods she
R I had only recognized this tradition through a Byzantine medium. The Italians had only to
5* '3 search among their ruins in order to bring the works of their ancestors once more to light.
So, when literary enthusiasm impelled every mind so irresistibly towards the study of antiquity,
Italy became the focus and active centre of the great artistic movement, usually called the Renaissance,
which, by extending its influence over other nations, was to change the face of art.
This complex and fruitful movement we shall not undertake to describe: it belongs to the general
history of the fine arts, and has been frequently related. We shall confine ourselves therefore to
observe its influence from our special point of view and with reference to our subject.




Pendant after Benvenuto Cellini. (Cabinet of Antiques, National Library of Paris.)
(Taken from “ Arts au Moyen dge.”)
Here we shall find in all that relates to ornament, though with some inventions of fresh types,
the impress of the highest genius in the use and application of the types borrowed from the antique,
from the East and from the national arts of Western Europe.
The immortal phalanx of great Italian artists of the sixteenth century, who determined the definitive
direction of Western taste towards a rejuvcneseent ideal still more varied and full of life than the ancient
art from whence it emanated, raised the decorative arts to the utmost, carrying into them that breadth
of ideas and extent of knowledge on every subject which these masters owed to their thorough
artistic education. Each of them being at once a painter, architect, sculptor, fi'equently an engineer,
mechanician, engraver or musician, and always well read in general literature, found all his resources and
means of execution in himself.
In such hands, ornament necessarily assumed a new character and extended its domain. It could
not but abandon by degrees the more or less uniform types and formulas imposed on it by the


RENAISSANCE. 39
almost exclusive ascendancy of architecture, or handed down by the practical tradition of crafts, and
thus lead decorative art into the way of a relative liberty already thrown open to it by the fancy which
had characterized the close of the Gothic period, especially in the illumination of manuscripts.
At the same time the science of design, perfected by contact with the finest models and freed from
the simplicity and inexperience of the Middle Ages, favoured in the compositions of this period a large
introduction of the human figure, which by its presence determined the proportions of the surrounding
objects.
Ornament from this time was frequently united whilst remaining subordinate, to the plastic arts,
which had now reached their greatest perfection, and by which it was carried forward in the path of
progress.
The Italians, then, during their golden age rendered decoration a superior and universal art.
Before the complete formation and definitive development of the style of the Renaissance, a certain
number of Italian ornamentalists of the fifteenth century preluded this revolution in art by compositions,
which may be considered as a transition stage between the style of the Middle Ages, and that of the
sixteenth century.
£ t
2A W *
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Leaf scroll, of the fifteenth century.
Plate LII. represents in this style some of the work of Girolamo da Cremona. Its strongly conceived
ornaments are evidently inspired by the rich forms of Roman sculpture. A massive flora and colouring
and design tinged with something of wildness, are its peculiar marks. The combinations exceed the
ordinary domains of manuscript illumination of the fifteenth century. The books from which our
illustrations are taken are indeed of a size which brings them nearer to fresco decorations. The Anti-
phonals and Graduals, some containing anthems, others masses with notes, are choir books, and in the
cathedrals of Sienna and Florence, and the Carthusian church of Pavia, there are some which are upwards
of four feet in height.
The principal subjects in Plate LVII. (Nos. 1 to 11), have also been taken from manuscripts
painted by Gherardo and Attavante, celebrated Florentines. The style is more finished than that of
the paintings in Plate LII. The ornamentation is everywhere of a well-sustained richness and ele-
gance; it consists of finely drawn branches, tastefully winding, usually taking the forms of the acanthus,
and frequently terminated by an expansion of rose-work resembling in some degree the botanical


4O POLYOHROMATIO' ORNAMENT.
type. Figures of children, pearls or cameos frequently relieve these decorations; a style which is seen
in Nos. 3, 4, 5, of Plate LV. in paintings attributed to Giulio Clovio.
Raphael gives us the highest expression of Renaissance ornament. Many others preceded him; but
as M. Dumesnil says (“Art italien”) “he arranged, harmonized, transfigured all that came before
him.”
It was with the assistance of Polydore da Caravaggio, a skilful ornamentalist and painter in grey,
and of Giovanni da Udine, who excelled in the painting of fruit, flowers and animals, that Raphael
covered the walls of the Vatican with the decoration from which we have taken the subjects represented
in Plates LIII. and LIV. and Nos. 12 and 13 of Plate LVII. as well as the engraved ivories (Nos. 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, of Plate LVI.) treated after the same designs. This ornamentation was imitated from that of the
ancients, a specimen of which had just been brought to light by the discovery of the Baths of Titus,
and which was afterwards confirmed by the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum, of which the
genius of Raphael seems almost to have had a presentiment. The master’s hand is particularly noticeable
in the panels representing the four Seasons and the three Fates; the judicious and sure taste of the
divine young man is to be found everywhere.
Such decoration gives a high idea of the domain of ornamental art, and shows how extensive should
be the knowledge of those who aim at such a noble ideal.
Besides this fine restoration of antique modes, brought about by Raphael and his school, there
also ensued a distinct and important fact which it is necessary to mention. The artists of the sixteenth
century, after having reconstructed the ornament of the ancients, experienced the need of adding to
it resources of greater variety in the details, and of providing fresh elements suited for larger decorative
effects. The greatest glory of the Italian Renaissance is perhaps the invention of these additional
ornaments. The volute scroll, substituted for the leaf scroll, or combined with it, was the novelty



“ if" W H \liih "i; m “Mn ‘






. -' ass-aw -
Volute Scroll. (Period of Francis 1.)
of the period; cartouches, of which a far more important use was beginning to be made, soon appro-
priated the double volute in relief, and this style, thus enriched by a fresh element, took an entirely original


Voluie Scroll. (Period of Henry II.)
development. Moreover, this new element was so logical that it was adopted by the greatest masters in
architecture, and since that time has passed through every modification of taste, never ceasing to take
a part in the greater number of modern decorations, whilst the fashion spread even into the most
minute ornaments.
The history of the cartouche still remains to be written. By grouping in separate Plates those
that we have been able to collect, according to their chronological order and the successive modifi-
cations they have been subjected to, without counting the considerable number of minor examples


RENA ISSA NCE. 41
which are to be found in other Plates, we have endeavoured to render some real service, by giving
the landmarks of a study necessary to all ornamentalists. (See for the sixteenth century the special
Plates LVIII. LXXI. LXXII. and the general Plates LIX. LX. LXI. LXIII. LXVII. and LXIX.
which contain some examples.)
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The first cartouches of the sixteenth century belong to what may be called the age of wood; they
have the appearance of carved wood; the natural rolls of fine shavings made with the plane are perhaps
its true origin.
The foliated volute scrolls were made into elements of ornamental construction similar in their
aim to those of which the Arabs had felt the necessity, but endowed, like the stems of plants with
which they were combined, with the curve and grace of the classic foliated scroll.
h |
| |
* limi' |
£ ||| £= £% * him!
Volute Scrolls, with examples of Volute in Relief. (Period of Charles IX.)
|
*
|
Volute Scrolls. (Period of Henry II.)
In this style the bareness of the outline of the constructive foliated scrolls is agreeably inter-
mingled with the indented vegetation of the scrolls of the acanthus family, which was brought into
G


42 POLYCHROMA TIC ORNAMENT.
honour again by the Renaissance. In this intermixture the breadth is atoned for by the lightness of
the outlines of the foliage, and also by the open work which facilitates overlapping. The use of plat-
bands in these foliated volute scrolls, variable in their length, renders the presence of figures of all
sorts reposing in them or apparently passing through, more probable. Masks, ribbons, flowers, or
fruit, correct too great a severity by offering some points of repose in the general distribution. Either
alone or combined, these elements of ornamental construction, corresponding in so many respects with
the ancient traditions of western logic which we have stated, have been perhaps the principal agents
in bringing about the most valuable manifestations of modern European art.
With them, the broad and ever-recurring acanthus stem of the Romans, or the ornamental vase
from which hung down or ascended doubly twisted branches along the frieze and panels, no longer pre-
vailed exclusiVely. Great numbers of free or imitated cartouches form the basis of fresh develop-
ments, and the use of engraving in the hands of the best
artists occurring at the same time as these new modes, caused
the rapid spread of the style, and propagated examples of
it everywhere. In the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy,
England, and Spain, arose similar conceptions, the local origi-
nality of which constantly increased its domain.
The further we advance into the sixteenth century the
more do we see that the antique element, the restoration of
which had been the first effort of the artists of the Renais-
sance, however weakened by the dispersal of the Roman
school after the death of Raphael, became mixed with other
elements drawn from different sources and combined by
modern genius in conformance with its own instincts. Already


LVGDVNI~ 1 _ “pad Clemenéam- 0‘, .
\Balsl'ryfilgm \ 71,: the name Arabesques, given to the decorations around the
1') aw...» = i \ paintings in the Loggie of the Vatican, had attested a certain
Cartouche with volutesiu relief,1556_ (Prinkm mark) consideration for Eastern fashions, which the commercial
(Taken from the “ Am (1,, HOW, age» 0,-1). Lacmix.) activity of the Italian Republics afforded means of knowing
and applying. The Arabian outlines exercised a certain
influence on the design of the new scrolls, and the purity with which, during the sixteenth century,
the Venetians employed the Persian manner (See Plate LXVIII.), leaves no doubt as to their
perfect acquaintance with the Oriental style and their appropriation of it.
We have already reminded our readers that the artistic movement of the Renaissance was not confined
to the frontiers of the country which had given it birth. From Italy it speedily spread amongst other
nations, and every art of native growth, of local or original nature, was more or less modified through this
invasion of Italian art, the effects of which were long and durable.
In the North, after the death of Albert Diirer, the style of which he was the most remarkable
representative was not continued after his immediate pupils, and the Netherlands, which had been,
during the fifteenth century, an artistic focus rivalling that of Italy, lost in a great degree during the
sixteenth, the powerful originality which had distinguished it.
In France the Italian style exerted no less influence, and the French artists were drawn along like
the others by this irresistible current.
The results of this revolution, which undoubtedly raised the standard of art, have been variously
judged. If we remember, that the French nation was already in possession, especially in regard to
decoration, of a simple and original art, which was tending towards further development, and also
that at the time when the excess of Italian artists spread themselves over Europe, and especially into
France, where they were invited by the kings, they brought with them a facile taste, and a practice
already far removed from the finest times of the Raphaelesque Renaissance, and representing a period
which, notwithstanding their personal merit, was already to some extent a period of decay, we can under-
stand why modern criticism, more just than that of an earlier time towards the centuries preceding the age
of Leo X., which are now more studied and better understood, should have expressed some regret at this
sort of confiscation of French national genius, thus arrested in its natural course. But was not this in-
evitable? could the art of our ancestors have existed without modifications whilst it possessed so powerful
a neighbour, and not seek to profit by the progress made in the science of design and the search after a


RENAISSANCE. 43
higher ideal? The simplicity and close resemblance to nature which form its special attraction, but which
in part were owing to real inexperience, would have lost their charm by becoming less unconscious and


a I,












Design taken from the Charterhouse Decorative Design attributed to J ean Cousin. Design taken from the Charterhouse
of Pavia, after Gailhabaud. (French Renaissance.) of Pavia, after Gailhabaud.
(Italian Renaissance.) (Communicated by M. A. F. Didot.) (Italian Renaissance.)




Cl, C. I

Decorative Design by Jean Cousin, taken from nis “ Livrc dc Perspective.” (French Renaissance.)
more voluntary. Almost every progress in art, however real it may be, is obtained at the detriment of a
certain native vigour, which we cannot see lessened without regret; but the human mind cannot turn


SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 45
and glass stainers, having schools in every provincial town, and practising their arts in the whole
of France, with local varieties: a marvellous preparation for the restoration of antique tradition which
the Italians were coming there to install.
The fact is now acknowledged that in all those active centres known by the name of Parisian,
Picard, Lorraine, Tourangel, Norman, Breton, Burgundian, Gascon, and Southern schools, in which
vigorous artists were developed, Italian art was quickly understood and applied, soon becoming absorbed
and transformed by the French mind with a success which the schools of Bruges and Cologne,
frequently successful rivals of French art during the pointed period, were not destined to equal.
Then, when in Italy the magnificent blooming time at the first half of the sixteenth century
was already passing away, even before the close of the century, through the excessive facilities indulged
in by the artist, France, introduced to fresh elegances, which she had entirely appropriated to herself
by bringing to bear on them her own native qualities, regained for herself a place which her
experienced genius had previously occupied. Jean Goujon, with the elongation of his beautiful figures
of nymphs, came nearer to the Greeks than any of his contemporaries, and Jean Cousin, skilful in
all the arts, adorned with his innumerable compositions glass, canvas, the vellum of manuscripts,
the pages of printing, goldsmith’s work and pottery, with a science and sureness of taste which
have caused him to be looked on as the true founder of the French school.












Details of the Church of Saint Etienne du Mont at Paris.
(Seventeenth century.)
(Taken from the “ Monuments anciens at modernes” of Gailhabaud.)
The old schools of the North transformed, by which we mean those of Flanders, the Rhenish
provinces, with that of France at their head, maintained then, better than even Italy herself, what
Fra Giocondo, Leonardo da Vinci, Il Rosso, Primaticcio, Andrea del Sarto, Benvenuto Cellini, Serlio,
and Paul Ponce Trebati, had taught them.
Those schools, already so rich in architects such as Jean Bullant, Philibert Delorme, Pierre
Lescot, and afterwards Ducerceau, whose vigorous ornaments come entirely within our subject, mark
by their own genius the masterpieces of engraving of those who were called the little masters, such as
Etienne Delaune, Théodore de Bry, Virgile Solis, Aldegrave, \Voeriot, &c., who in the seventeenth
century were represented by Jacques Mestre, Etienne de la Belle, Michel Blondus, H. Janssen,
&c. &c.
As far as their works are engravings, they are beyond our subject, but their goldsmith’s work,
which for the most part has not escaped destruction, bears witness to a genius too original to allow
us to pass it by in silence. Historically the productions of these artist-engravers and goldsmiths, as
those of potters, locksmiths, cabinet-makers (some in the middle of the sixteenth century, others at its
close and at the commencement of the seventeenth), prove that the level of ornament was maintained in


46 PO L Y CHROMATIC ORNAMENT.
the North at a height to which it no longer attained in Italy, then filled with the mannerism, which
inferior imitators of the sublime but contorted style of Michael Angelo had brought into vogue, and
the sight of which, it is said, troubled the end of that great man. It thus prepared the way for those
twisted decorations, the convenient and lax principles of which were in the next century to produce in
France the Louis XV. style.
The glorious memory of its golden age, however, still gave it influence, and caused a superiority
to be attributed to it which was only justified in its past.
Pendant of Gilles l'Egaré.
(Eighteenth century.)
Design after Janssen.
Embossed gold Cassolette. (French work of
the seventeenth century.)
(Taken from “Arts au Moyen äge.”)
This was seen clearly when, at a later time, under Louis XIV. Bernini, who was then enjoying a
European reputation, came into France, whither he had been summoned by the king to finish the
Louvre. His arrival was hailed with delight, but he was soon sent away overwhelmed, it is true, with
gifts and caresses; after having seen him at work and in conflict with the equally stately but substantial
genius of the French artists, the public were undeceived.
About the close of the sixteenth century and the commencement of the seventeenth, the independent
character, which energetic and original artists had preserved in the application of the principles
brought into honour at the time of the Renaissance, went on decreasing to make way for a closer
but more timid imitation of the direct models of antiquity, which were becoming more abundant,
and exciting general admiration.
Thence ensued, assisted by the troubles of the time, a relative sterility; for, according to the
expression of a modern critic (Guilmard, “Histoire générale de l'ornement”), “antiquity was ill studied
at that time; artists had rather the wish to imitate it than the ability, and they were far from
comprehending its true power and exquisite purity.”
We must add that, after the errors of the Italian artists employed under the later Valois, it was
to a certain degree a happy re-action, which caused the return of art to the common source. After


SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 47
these attempts, beginning with such stilted elegance though not devoid of delicacy, we perceive in
it a sincere love of the antique, and also that it was contemporary with the elevated and thoroughly
French style of Nicholas Poussin. Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, of Plate LXXIV. ; the ceiling of the Louvre
and the fragment of a panel from Fontainebleau
(Plate LXXVI.) are the results of a return to
the principles of Roman antiquity; for that was
almost the only antiquity then thought of.
Yet, in the arabesque decorations of the
apartment of Marie de Medici in the Luxem-
bourg, Plate LXXVI. the freedom of the Renais-
sance time is once more felt; it is a last ray
from the Italian influence of the favourite Concini.
Conjointly with this more or less frank return
to the mode of the antique, there took place in
the decorative arts a movement which was at
first favoured by the victories and reign of
Henri IV., and which also took an important
part in the formation of the style predominant
during the reign of Louis XIII. and the first
part of that of Louis XIV. The fashion then
turned towards Flemish productions. The varia-
tions these productions passed through may be
studied with advantage in the collection of orna-
ments engraved between 1607 and 1624, and their
peculiar character may be recognized in the series
of our plates.
Whilst preserving some remembrance of the
Italian Renaissance, the new foliated scrolls (see
Plate LXXVI.) of manuscript and enamelled
ornaments, and also the cartouches, piers and
escutcheons (Plate LXXVII.), make up, with
Plate LXXV. sufficiently varied examples of the
new style, whose tendency to heaviness could not
fail before long to become somewhat excessive.
The style of the first part of the seven-
teenth century finds its most complete and
happiest expression in the compromise of Nos. 1
and 4, in Plate LXXVII. We shall not dwell
on the strangeness of the forms of the cartouches
with which the rest of the plate is filled.
The Chinese productions, of which Holland
was at this period the principal entrepôt, must
have greatly contributed to arouse, or, at all
events, to keep up a taste for the representation
of objects of this nature, the principal merit in
which is their elasticity; for they will adapt
themselves to every need and will form any
combination. The Italians, although they made
use of them, did not dare to carry them so far.
Pendentive taken from the Frescoes of Annibal Caracci in the
Farnese Palace.
The success of these inventions is principally owing to the master cabinet-makers, who, like the
Flemings Wriese and Christopher Feinlin, or Frederic Unteutsch, of Frankfort, executed or engraved so
much furniture of a heavy magnificence, which has again been copied in our days.
Cabinet-making, so much developed by the manufacture of these magnificent cabinets and chests,
in fashion during the Renaissance, and specimens of which have come down to us, shows that the Germans,


48 POLY CHRO MATIC OR NA MENT.
French and Italians were equally skilful and ingenious in this manufacture, and cabinet-making seems
indeed to have been the special ground on which the transformation and union of styles took place.
Neither goldsmith's work nor painting had indeed any occasion for the sometimes exaggerated
amplitude to which recourse was had by the workers in wood, at that time well-educated men.
When, after the summons of Richelieu and the “discomfiture of the famous and unique Monsieur
Frieze after Lepautre.
le Poussin, the honour of the French in his profession, and the Raphael of our age,” as a contemporary
says (see N. Destailleur, “Notices sur quelques artistes français"), Jean Lepautre was called upon to a
certain degree to direct the taste of the period, he came from the workshop of a cabinet-maker, where
- - -
Włów Wye
£
s's
Designs for Cartouches after Lepautre.
he had been early placed as an apprentice. It is true that this workshop was no other than that of
Adam Philippon, who styled himself “cabinet-maker and engineer in ordinary to the king” (towards
the close of the reign of Louis XIII.), and who had been sent through the whole of Italy to seek “the
most celebrated men in the arts of painting, sculpture and other professions necessary for the decorations
of royal palaces, and had brought into France great numbers of workmen and of the finest bas-reliefs and
antique figures.” This may show the importance of such cabinet-makers, and the knowledge concealed
under so modest a title.
It was from this journey in Italy, in which Philippon must have been accompanied by his pupil
that Lepautre returned, with his taste formed, and in a position to produce those numerous and


S EVENTEENTH A ND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 49
varied works, with such gorgeous decorations, which represent the most brilliant period of the
Louis XIV. style.
The lessons which he brought from Italy were no longer those of the pure and elegant school
of Raphael. Long before this time Giulio Romano, at Mantua, and the other pupils of Raphael
in the rest of Italy, had exhausted in some degree the arabesque style, the tendencies of which,
more and more tinged with the picturesque, had rapidly degenerated.
When Lepautre was in Italy, and numerous workmen were induced to leave that country for
France, Bernini was reigning at Rome; but what was of greater importance was that it was im-
mediately after the glorious time which the school of the Carracci, founded at Bologna at the close
of the sixteenth century, had restored to Italian art. When all the other schools were in a state of
decay, this Bolognese school returned to the best traditions of decorative art (see p. 47), and it was
principally from it that the pomp-loving and fertile Lepautre was to receive his inspirations. Nothing,
indeed, could have been better suited to his taste than the grand and vigorous style, occasionally
verging on inflation and excess, of the Italian decorators of this school.
The nature of the decorative ornaments of the school of Lepautre does not allow us to bring
them into the subjects that we have treated in colour. Conceived with a view to broad effects, and
somewhat of the nature of stage-painting, they are too unlike what is required of modern arts and
Frieze after Lepautre.
manufactures for an ordinary use to be made of them in anything but architecture, for which they were
intended.
Notwithstanding the passionate admiration which then prevailed for the antique, artists could not
touch it without altering and overloading it, for it was considered too grave and bare. They wished
to give it greater richness, and in trying to perfect it changed all relations of proportions with an
exaggeration, a furia, of which the accompanying friezes will give some idea.
The desire to make everything grand was the stumbling block of that time. Its best result
was a powerful effect of unity, owing principally to the great designers, the architect Mansard and
the painter Lebrun, the latter of whom did indeed possess the necessary authority to direct the decorative
arts of every kind. An artist in every branch of art like the great Italians, but an absolute despot, he
presided over everything that was to be done : “sculptures, ornaments for the interior of apartments,
tapestries, goldsmith's work, iron-work, mosaics, tables, vases, lustres, candelabra, all passed through
his hands, and nothing appeared at the Court that was not invented by him and executed under his
directions.” (Louis and René Ménard, “Tableau historique des beaux-arts.”)
The incredible quantity of public and private buildings, which seemed to arise almost spontaneously,
at this time, gave to the France of Louis XIV. a general character very different from that of the
preceding times. In the north and south, east and west, we find everywhere the well-known type
of that architecture, not without grandeur, but which, by sacrificing everything to magnificence of
appearance, frequently accords but ill with the object proposed. The necessity of decorating buildings
promptly and simultaneously in so many places, while stimulating the whole industrial world and forming
an incalculable number of workmen, could not but cause a great laxity in the choice and execution of
details of every description.
H


5O POLYCHROMATIC ORNAMENT.
The peculiar originality of each of the provincial schools disappeared in this general movement,
in which each individual could only make use of types promulgated by the central academies. Unhappily
the forms employed, being of too easy choice and design, sometimes weak, singular, twisted and
heavy, disfigure this ornamentation, which, although sustained by the greatest energy, fatigues the eye
by an overcrowding of detail.
What distinguished France in the use of these over—decorated styles, at a period in which the
Italians were doing still worse, and the rest of Europe was endeavouring to follow in their steps, resulted
from the old habits of correctness and discretion which form a national characteristic. The level
of the teaching was maintained by the great institutions commenced by Richelieu, encouraged by
Mazarin and supported by Colbert. The direction of the artists of the Louvre, who produced works of
superior excellence in every branch of art, and the power of education possessed by every master in
his guild, contributed to give an exceptional value to the whole, notwithstanding a certain defect in
the principles.












~‘ ~ ;_'.-.'
If“ \V‘Ll/V
L‘Iv. Qullfll-I 0 Jr!


Running Ornamentation. (Seventeenth century.)
The fault that we have indicated in the architecture of the time, was to be seen in everything;
the sentiment which should inspire the use of decorative art according to the particular purpose of
each object, was entirely wanting. There was now only one character of ornament for all objects,
manufactured without sufficient thought of the special character required by their different destinations.
However, we must not forget that the acquired knowledge was great, and, although they some-
times changed the nature of what they borrowed, yet they knew how to turn it to account. Oriental
processes, amongst others, were not without influence on the ornamentation of which we are speaking.
They were used judiciously according to the forms in fashion ; to the influence of the oriental earthenware
must be attributed the geometrical conventional designs, with free colouring, the scallop decorations, with
light foliage, or with a full surface, which form the ground of the earthenware, Plate LXXXII. The
ideas for the tapestries of Plate LXXXIII. are also taken from the same principles; and whilst speaking
of these tapestries, in which brilliant colours arranged with doubtful taste produce such confusion, we
must call attention to the fact that Nos. 1 and 2 contain a remarkable example of design that is rich
in instruction. It is a composition formed almost entirely of elements, whose combinations are infinitely


SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 51
varied without changing their nature; the crossings in relief of the roses, canopies, cartouches, vases and
bouquets, foliated constructive ornaments from which springs the acanthus, either covering them or
striving away from them, clasps formed by neighbouring branches, finally the curves produced by
different bits of branch-work having a common termination and resulting in an incidental figure, are
all represented in these decorations of such characteristic make.
Again, the applications of Boulle work, Plate LXXXIV. are executed according to the sound data
Running Ornamentation. (Seventeenth century.)
furnished by the Orientals as to design for surfaces. The examples on Plate LXXXV. emanate directly
from them; the foliated volute scroll, No 4, Plate LXXXI. and the leathers on Plate LXXXVI. belong to
the same series. The divided and richly ornamented palm-leaves which appear several times in the last-
Tail-pieces. (Bérain's style.)
mentioned plate would alone suffice, if placed near the works of the ancient Greeks, to give an exact idea of
the process of enriching employed at that period. These palm-leaves, with the elements mentioned above,
give the whole history of running ornaments of the Louis XIV. style, in its usual applications.
The most brilliant, or at least the best-known representatives of this phase of French art are Jean
Bérain and Daniel Marot.
The former was much in fashion and, although we may entertain some doubt as to the taste displayed
in compositions where many grotesques occur, they at all events show much imagination. In the
decorations of the Salon d'Apollon, Plate LXXIX. in which he drew his inspiration from the pyramidal
combinations of Raphael, making use at the same time of every resource of learning, we cannot fail
to perceive that he has all the suppleness of a real talent, and that these works possess high merit.
Daniel Marot, whose imagination was not less rich than Bérain's, while his design was more elegant,
and who was well fitted for the highest employments, was not, like Bérain, made designer in ordinary to the
King of France. This artist was a Protestant, and, being obliged in consequence to leave his native country
after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, he went to Holland, and afterwards to England with the
Prince of Orange, where he was named architect to that prince when he became William III. The


52 POLYCHROMATIC ORNAMENT.
collection of 260 plates published by him in 1712 bears witness to his remarkable talent and fertility-
His versatile power applied itself to everything : beds, chairs, armchairs, tables, mirrors, candelabra, large
clocks, designs for tapestries and housings, patterns for fabrics, in short, says M. Destailleurs, “all the
thousand objects of everyday life from the kettle to the hand of a watch ;” without counting the fact
that, like Bérain in France, he was the arranger of festivals and organizer of the grand funereal pomps
which he has engraved.
The productions of Robert de Cotte, Gillot, etc., represent the latest formula of the Louis XIV. style.
In the tapestries on Plates LXXXVII. and LXXXVIII., fresh elegancies may be felt. In the border
Nos. 1, 2, 3 of Plate LXXXIX., a more careful execution, better detached details, a more sober
treatment of the background, mark an improvement in taste, a little disfigured, however, by grotesque
cartouches with barbarous figures, intended to serve as points of repose.


Emblematic Cartouche. (Seventeenth century.)
Under equally transitory forms, this style is also seen in the rich decoration with a gold ground in
Plate XCI. as well as in the fine paintings in half camaieu of the well-arranged ceiling of Plate XC.
As we advance we see the tendency becoming more marked towards a light colouring for the ground
of decorations, which becomes at last quite general.
Louis XV. Style.—The first change which ornament underwent, about the twentieth year of the
eighteenth century, and which constitutes what is called the Louis XV. style, was commenced principally
by the architects Gilles-Marie Oppenord and Juste-Aurele Meissonnier, while the most complete expression
of it is to be found in the works of Babel and Baléchou.
The origin of this transformation may be seen both in the excessive adornment which had prevailed
under Louis XIV., and also in the example and success of Francesco Borromini, architect and sculptor,
who worked at the cathedral of St. Peter’s under the direction of Bernini, and died in 1667, after
having excited great admiration by his broken lines, executed with remarkable facility and power of
invention.
If, notwithstanding the glory of such a precedent and its chiefly Italian origin, France has had the honour
of giving to this new style the name of one of her kings, which name has since been adopted everywhere,
even in Italy, it is because the French school in adopting processes which tended to the overthrow
of all the principles of order known until then, succeeded in giving to the liberty of form which she


SEVENT EE NTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 53
took up a stamp of lightness, grace and wit which are frequently wanting in the Italian and German
productions of the same period.
It was not without difficulty that the new principles, or rather the overturning of all principles
believed in until then, succeeded in finding acceptance. The vigour of the struggle caused in France by
this invasion of new modes impelled their advocates to fresh efforts. Never were more address, ingenuity
and real learning brought into the service of more doubtful doctrines.
After having abandoned all the old methods for which, says Cochin ironically “they had a superstitious
respect,” there remained no guide but personal taste, of which everyone had to give proof. Now, if
notwithstanding the dangers of such a liberty, the honours of the century remained with the innovators of
the time, it was because the artists who
were protesting in favour of wiser principles
were far from being equal to those who were
pleased to fall in with the mannered style
which soon became prevalent.
The mistakes caused by these vagaries,
when they were tried by inferior hands, soon
became excessive and before long such a state
of decay was reached, that it was indeed time
for the Greek antique to re-appear with her
immortal youth through the shroud of lava
which had preserved her.
However dangerous, when looked at in
the light of general principles, may have been
the independent and bold action of the school
which produced the real brilliancy of the
decorations of the eighteenth century, we
cannot fail to acknowledge that it endowed
France with some charming works of art;
that under the apparent frivolity of this art,
and through its thousand caprices, we may
discover a perfect understanding of the re-
quirements of private decoration, which plays
so large a part in modern life; an under-
standing which, by the force of example has
not been without healthy influence on the
decorative arts in our days.
Besides this we must not forget that this art succeeded that of the first days of the eighteenth century,
the time when Gillot, and after him his pupils—amongst whom was Watteau—had recourse to light
decorations of capricious improbability in their details. From this point of view, the types of the new
school, contorted though they were, yet at all events possessed the advantage of being more in conformance
with the traditional and national habits of logic.
It may then easily be understood how it was that with such good qualities, the new manner,
notwithstanding its defects, should have triumphed over the numerous criticisms it provoked; of which
criticisms the engraver Cochin constituted himself the passionate exponent in the “Mercure de France,”
but some of which would now appear exaggerated.
Time indeed, although condemning certain abuses, has not ratified all the prejudices of the criticism
of that period, of those, for example, who declared that “a candlestick should always be straight and per-
pendicular, to bear a light, and not twisted as if it had been forced.” The skilful artists of the best period
of the eighteenth century have long ago been joined by eminent connoisseurs in refuting what there was
too uncompromising in such criticism.
To sum up, this century, with its boldness and skill is one of the most curious in the history of
ornament. Its success besides was quite exceptional.
The superior arts, brought down to the same level of simple decoration, rendered it active assistance.
After the fairy-like scenes of Watteau, so delicately drawn and warmly coloured, came the pearly-grey
Running Mouldings. (Eighteenth century.)


54 POL Y CHROMATIC OR NA MENT.
Empyreans, and the pastoral pieces with a blueish landscape, of the erotic Boucher. These were objects
of great value to ornaments intended for the mounting of pier-glasses.
Thus ornamentalists, whose art came in a manner to occupy a preponderating position, taught with an
authority which their art, when secondary, had denied them.
After Oppenord, who, having studied ancient architecture, and worked at the Church of St. Sulpice,
only joined with some reserve in the new movement, Meissonnier, who styles himself painter, sculptor,
architect, designer of the bedchamber and cabinet of the king, gives us under the title of “Architecture
universelle,” a collection of ornaments of his own invention, the object of which was to urge forward
the impulse given to decorative art by Lepautre and Marot. This is what the sarcastic and somewhat
unjust Cochin styles, “a gay architecture, independent of all the rules of what was formerly called
good taste.” (See on this subject the very interesting documents published by M. Destailleur, in his
“Notices” on some French Artists.)
P. E. Babel, designer of ornaments and goldsmith at Paris, who understood the Rock-work style,
better than any one else, also prided himself on furnishing models for architecture.
We should have been astonished at such an encroachment on the territory of the architect, if the
liberal education of these ornamentalists did not explain, though without always excusing some of their
pretensions. The celebrated goldsmith, Thomas Germain, made at the same time plans for buildings and
Moulding. (Eighteenth century.)
for pieces of plate; it was he who furnished designs for the new church of St. Louis of the Louvre, built in
1738, on the site of the ancient collegiate church of St. Thomas.
An analysis of the productions of that time in which every artist set his own stamp of originality on
his works, forming differences which modern publications have endeavoured to point out, does not appear
to us to come necessarily within the limits of our subject. All the ornaments of that period, whether
they be by Meissonnier, Babel, Baléchou, Jean Daniel de Preissler, La Joue, Isaie Nilson, Cuvilies, Jean-
André Thélot, Jérémie Wachsmuth, François Xavier Haberman, Jean Léonard Wuest, Jean Léonard
Eysler, Jean Hauer, Charles Roettiers or A. Masson, are all treated in a picturesque style, frequently
agreeing but indifferently with the laws imposed by the decoration of surfaces.
Thus the principal result of the ever-increasing part performed by painting in decoration was to
substitute for the conventional representation of objects, the imitative representation of which we spoke at
the commencement of our essay as an eminently modern proceeding.
As a general characteristic of this style in form, we may notice an almost complete absence of straight
lines, which are replaced by the curves of the letter S, and a contempt for every form precisely square,
round or oval; and yet the style is treated with some grandeur, of which Meissonnier was the happiest
representative. -
The rock-work style which was to make its way into all the decorative arts, appears to have arisen from
the art of creating artificial gardens, which were much in fashion even in the sixteenth century. We do
not know who invented them, nor to what origin they may justly be attributed. The Chinese very
frequently make use of rock-work in their gardens as well as in their decorations, and it was probably to
those enemies of symmetry that the eighteenth century owed its large use of this decorative element,
which stamps with so peculiar a mark the productions of the Louis XV. style.
However this may be, the French artists were the principal authors of the models in this style, which
the immense collections of Hertel and Engelbrecht contained, and which delighted all Europe.
Plate XCIII. contains in the double character of its cartouches, the latest ornaments in the
Louis XIV. style, by artists who persisted in ancient errors, and also others in the extravagant


SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 55
fancy of those belonging to the fashionable school.
Nos. 2, 3, 12, 13, are by Bernard Picard; who
was working at Antwerp between 1720 and 1730. No. 1 was painted in Paris in 1740. Nos. 4 and 5,
which still possess some symmetry,
though without a straight line, pre-
sent combinations and foliated scrolls
of the intermediate time. No. 9, by
Isaie Nilson, and 10 and 11 by La
Joue, belong to the best times of the
rock-work. In these latter figures,
as in that of No. 8, in the same plate,
and in the mounting of the fan, Plate
XCVI. we find use made of shells
and endive, so fashionable at that
time that the acanthus had almost
disappeared.
The danger of these mannered
compositions, retained in fashion
After Cuvilies.
during a certain time owing to their
being executed with extreme skill,
which made use of every material
with unequalled dexterity, could not
be long concealed when the execu-
tion fell into less skilful hands. After
having created numbers of charm-
ing vignette painters such as Hubert
Gravelot, Eisen, Laurent Cars, J. Ch.
Lebas, Cl. Duflos, Choffart and
Aug. de Saint-Aubin, the Louis XV.
style was destined to disappear
before the revival of antique studies,
although it found representatives
until 1789, and passed through all
Cartouche after Babel.
the excesses of a bad taste, some idea of which may be formed by the subject represented above.
After Cuvilies.
After Cuvilies.
Louis XVI. Style.—Even before the reign of Louis XVI. the return to a simpler taste had numerous


56 POL YCHROMATIC OR NA MENT.
partizans. The discovery of Herculaneum in 1706, occupied people's minds even before the excava-
Rockwork Cartouche.
tions presented results of any extent or real
utility, which only happened about 1750; the
re-action, then commenced in architecture by
Servandoni and his pupil De Vailly, was not
long in producing some effect in the modes of
decorative art, and it was this same re-action
which only attained a definitive formula under
Louis XVI. whose name it still bears.
The works of Reisner, Gouthière Demon-
treuil; “Les lambris d'appartements, tant en pein-
ture que sculpture,” by De Neufforges; “Les
sculptures, menuiseries, orfèvreries et fontes,” by
De Lafosse; “Les décorations en peintures de
fleurs et d'ornements,” by Ransom; “La joaillerie
et la bijouterie” by the younger Pouget; “Les
chandeliers et lustres,” by Forty, as well as the
compositions of La Londe and the charming
foliated scrolls of Salembier, represent the varied
expressions of the Louis XVI. style, interesting
examples of which may be found in Plates XCVI.
XCVII. XCVIII. XCIX. and C.; (see the notices
accompanying these plates) and which have lately
been deservedly admired by amateurs.
Although here we bring to a close our short
sketch, as well as our collection of illustrations,
on the threshold of the revolution of 1789, it is not
because we set no value on the efforts made in our own age, the
fecundity of which is amply proved by the results obtained in the
various branches of decorative art during late years, and which will,
we hope, be still more firmly established. But the time has not yet
arrived either to judge impartially the work of the nineteenth century,
or, still more, to recognize its definitive character through the successive
infatuations which at first prevailed, or the wide eclecticism which
has succeeded in our own day.
The first steps were especially difficult and obstructed in France.
There the political agitations and long wars destroyed at once both
the aristocracy of enlightened amateurs, and, what was still more
serious, the workmen and artists formed by the good old French
traditions, who were led by enthusiasm and want of work to the battle-
fields of 1792, from which few returned.
The century had thus a two-fold task before it: to create public
taste anew, and to re-establish centres of study; neither of which
could be the affair of a day.
Knowing this, it is no longer surprising that France should have
spent much time in groping her way towards the light; seeking it
first under the Empire in a return to the antique, then in the pointed
style during the Restoration and the literary movement of 1830, at
a later time in a partial return to the decorative styles of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, and still more recently in a fruitful study of
the productions of oriental art.
But, out of these various attempts and the lively discussions
they occasioned, there has arisen in our time a wider, more en-
lightened, and more judicious appreciation of past ages. |
After Salembier.


SE VENTEENTH AND E I G H TEENTH CENTURY. 57
Numerous publications have brought before us the history of art, and this archaeological erudition has
enabled us to re-link the chain of broken traditions.
Modern art, thus freed from all exclusiveness, may, with a full knowledge of the facts, examine
the works of the past, and make a choice from amongst the riches accumulated by our predecessors.
mm f : [In
After Salembier.
Without neglecting the resources and variety of modern art, such as the sixteenth, seventeenth,
and eighteenth centuries have bequeathed to us, furnishing as they do such excellent models of
decoration, and as a whole, perfectly suited to our manners, modern decorators are able to find
elements of strength and originality in that study of free and vigorous proceeding, of that high con-
ventional decoration, which give so much character to the works of antiquity, to oriental and Asiatic
products, to the stained glass of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, to the enamels of Limoges,
and to the earthenware and majolica wares of the Renaissance.
In these they will find that power of effects which arises from freedom of colouring and a
field always open to invention or to idealization, which raises the character of the artist's work and
allows one of the masters of modern art to give this true formula of decorative art: “Ornament,” says
M. Guillaume, director of the School of Fine Arts (“Idée générale d'un enseignement élémentaire"),
“must not change the form of the surface it decorates; it is on this surface, and either forms a
part of it or is applied to it; it must not appear either to penetrate into it, or to be capable
of being easily detached from it. . . . . It is a very ideal form of art. The ornamentalist, still
I


58 POLYC H R O MATIC OR NA MENT.
more than either the painter or the sculptor, looks upon the art of design as serving to represent
not real beings, but objects of an organism at once superior and dependent.”
We feel certain that the present school, brought up with such principles, will make fresh progress
After Salembier.
in the road pointed out by the recent Exhibitions, and will find in the study of the best times,
not a temptation to servile imitation, or to a simple copying, but models fitted to inspire original
productions which may serve as models in their turn, and provide materials for a future history of
the decorative arts of the nineteenth century.








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PRIMITIVE ART.
WOWEN FABRICS, SCULPTURES, AND PAINTINGS.
The examples in the accompanying plate, although derived from very different sources, are connected with
civilisations which are in some respects analogous.
MUSEE DE LA MARINE, LOUVRE.
No 1.
Woven fabric. (Oceania.)
No 2.
Woven fabric. (Central Africa.)
No 3.
Plaited vegetable fabric. (Central Africa).
No 4.
Braided fabric. (0ceania.)
No 5.
Braided leather. (Central Africa.)
Nos 6 to 12.
Paintings in intaglio on wooden utensils. (Central Africa.)
No 12.
Round fan made of coloured feathers. (Oceania.)
No 13.
Border of a utensil of painted wood. (Central Africa.)
Nos 14 to 17.
Paintings, ornaments on canoes and utensils. (Oceania.)
Nos 18 to 21.
Painted decorations on Peruvian utensils, taken from Antiguedades
Peruanas por don Mariano Eduardo de Rivero y Dr. don Juan Diego de
Tschudi. — Viena, 1851.
Nos 22 t0 47.
Paintings on Mexican manuscripts. (Bibl. Nat.)


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EGYPTIAN ART.
DECORATIVE PAINTINGS.
The principal objects employed in Egyptian ornaments belong as a rule to the language of hieroglyphics.
Thus, for instance, the pink sphere with hawk's wings (N° 6) represents the rising sun. — The water-
flowers intertwined with reeds in the lower part of the plate (N" 4, 5) are types of running water. — The sca-
rabeus, the black colour of which is so striking (N° 12), symbolizes immortality. — The running ornaments
(N" 10, 11) of which the Greeks afterwards made Vitruvian scrolls, signifying the rolling of the waves of the sea, is
likewise a part of the language of Egyptian artists. – Red, blue, and yellow were the principal colours they used,
with black and white to define the outlines; green was used more particularly as a local colour, for the stalk and
part of the flower, though in the more ancient paintings blue is frequently substituted for it.
No. 1, 2, 3. No. 8, 9.
Painted bouquets. Painted sculptures. – Little wooden columns.
Nos 4, 5.
Nos 10, 11.
Grounds, borders, and bases from Thebes.
Undulating friezes.
No 6.
- - No 12.
Painted sculpture, from the Memnonium at Thebes. Ceilings. -
No 7. Taken from the publication of the French Commission on Egypt and
Undulating friezes. Egyptian Art, by M. Prisse d'Avesnes.





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EGYPTIAN ART.
JEWELLERY.
& Tombs o, says M. Auguste Mariette, & sometimes become true historical monuments through the quantity
of objects placed by the side of the dead.
lections :
In them are to be found the objects which form the basis of all col-
amulets, statuettes of the gods, jewels, papyri, etc.
It is from cemeteries that those perfect specimens of Egyptian jewellery have been obtained which are so in-
teresting to those engaged in ornamental work.
The broad and inflexible character of Egyptian design, which is so well expressed in metal, is especially suited
to the work of the lapidary, and we ought to congratulate ourselves on the custom which required that every
dead body should be adorned at least with its principal necklace.
No 1.
Naos or breastplate of cloisonné enamel, with a tablet below the
frieze bearing the name of Rameses II, XIX Dynasty. – Louvre.
No 2.
Frame-work of gold, filled in with glass. – Louvre.
Both these jewels come from the Serapeum of Memphis. (The Sera-
peum is the mausoleum of Apis. Thus the god of the Serapeum,
that is to say Serapis, is merely Apis dead. – Aug. Mariette.)
No 3.
Scarabaeus of lapis-lazuli with wings of glass beads. (The scara-
baeus with the Egyptians was the symbol of immortality.)
No 4.
Necklace from the head of Apis.
Nos 5, 6, 7.
Bracelets of cloisonné enamel.
Nos 8, 9.
Rings opened out.
Nos 10 to 26.
Ear-rings, necklaces, and amulets.
No 27.
Sphinx taken from a stela, composed of the androcephalic lion. (The
symbolism of the sphinx has not yet been sufficiently elucidated. Ac-
cording to the Greeks it symbolized strength both physical and in-
tellectual.)
Nos 28 to 33.
Jewellery from paintings at Thebes. Published by the French Egyp-
tian commission, and M. Prisse d'Avesnes. (Monuments égyptiens,
4 vols. folio; Paris, Didot.)


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ASSYRIAN ART.
EXAMPLES OF POLYCHROMATIC DECORATION.
Two distinct periods may be remarked in Assyrian art : the first, that of the foundation of Babylon by the Naba-
teans, on an alluvial ground destitute of stone quarries — a period characterized by the exclusive use of brick, and
when the architectonic system was consequently forcibly restricted; — afterwards a second period, that of Nineveh,
founded by the Scythians, the conquerors of primitive Babylon, in a region where basalt and numerous stone
quarries rendered possible a monumental architecture which the Babylonians had not known.
It is in general to this Ninivite period, which might be called the Scytho-Assyrian, that the remains collected in the
museums of London and Paris belong. The various specimens given in our plate belong to this period.
NINEVEH. – PALACE OF KHORSABAD. No 5.
No 1 BRICKS INLAID IN colours, Layard.
Nos 6 to 10.
PAINTED sculPTURES, Layard. ENAMELLED BRICKs, Victor Place.
Nos 2, 3, 4. Nos 11 to 18.
PAINTED scULPTURES, Victor Place. VARIOUS SPECIMENS, Layard.


Nos 19, 20. PERSEPOLIS.
PANTINGs, Victor Place. Nos 24 to 33,
Nos 21 to 23. RESToRATioNs, by M. C. Texier (l'Arménie, la Perse et la Mésopo-
RESToRATIoNs, by Botta. tamie.2 vols.folio; Firmin Didot).
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GREEK ART.
CONVENTIONAL FLORA, FRET-WORK OR MEANDERS.
The conventional Greek flora is very far from being a representation of any species of plants. It adopts merely
their general characteristics; the types are varied but slightly, and the painted ornaments on architectural monu-
ments are precisely of the same nature as those of smaller proportions on vases. Several of these representations, how-
ever, resemble nature; the laurel, ivy, vine, and aloe are easily recognized.
We give examples both of the flora of Magna Graecia, and of the same flora treated with greater freedom on
the vases of Apulia.
No I. Nos 5, 6.
Painted antefixae. Temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, at AEgina. (Blouet, Paintings from vases, published by Hittorff
Expédition scientifique en Morée, 3 vols. folio; Firmin Didot.) 8 ~,
Nos 2, 3, 4. No 7.
Terra-cotta ornaments from Athens. (Le Bas, Voyage archéologique
en Grèce et en Asie Mineure; Firmin Didot.) Paintings from vases. From the Campana Museum.


N" 81012.
N05 17 to 20.
Paintings on vases, taken from the Gewerbchallc.
Nos 13 to 16.
Ova of ogee, with undulating friezes.
Paintings taken from figures of Apuleian vases published by Gerhard.
N" 21 to 30.
Fret-work or meanders. (The Greeks made use of waves or meanders
to distinguish water from land.)





GREEK AND GRECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITIES.
SPECIMIENS OF POLYCHROMATIC DECORATION.
The accompanying plate contains numerous specimens of polychromatic decoration taken from various periods of
Greek Art, dating from the time of the monuments in AEgina, or the Parthenon, down to that which may be called
the Greco-Roman.
The colouring is taken from drawings by the most competent artists.
The following is a list of the subjects in our plate, with references to the authorities on which our information
is based.
Nos 1, 2, 3.
Frieze and corona ornaments, from the restoration of the Parthenon,
by M. Paccard. (Ecole des Beaux-Arts : Roman section.)
No 4.
Ornaments from the frieze of the temple of the Wingless Victory at
Athens. (Lebas, Voyage archéologique en Grèce et en Asie Mineure,
I, pl. 8, N° 1.)
No 5.
Ancient fragment from a panel of a corona. (Lebas, id., II, pl. 6, No 1.)
No 6.
Antefixae from the temple of the Wingless Victory. (Lebas, id., I, pl. 6.)
No. 7, 8, 9.
Ancient fragments from different monuments at Athens. (Lebas, id.,
I, pl. 8, N° 4; II, pl. 5, N* I and 11.)
No 10.
Decorations over the entrance to the temple of Minerva Polias at Athens,
from the restoration of that monument by M. Tetas. (Ecole des Beaux-
Arts : Roman section.)
No 1 1.
Frieze ornament on the temple at Paestum, from the restoration by
M. Thomas. (Ecole des Beaux-Arts : Roman section.)
No. 12, 13.
Ornaments on the temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, at AEgina, from the
restoration by M. Garnier. Exterior (12); Interior (13). (Ecole des
Beaux-Arts : Roman section.)
No 14.
Star from the Propylaea. (Lebas, Hittorff, etc.)
No 15.
Cymatium, forming a gutter, found among the ruins of a temple at Me-
-
tapontum. (Métaponte, by M. le duc de Luynes et F. S. Debacq, pl. 7.)
No 16.
Face and soffit of an ornament in earthenware, serving as a covering
to the beams, found at Metapontum. (Id., pl. 8.)
No 17.
Painted mouldings. (Hittorff, Architecture polychrome chez les Grecs, pl.9,
fig. 10, p. 767.)
Nos 18, 19.
Vitruvian scrolls.
Nos 20, 21.
Meanders.
No 22.
Painted ornaments on a sarcophagus found at Girgenti. (Hittorff, Ar-
chitecture polychrome, pl. 9, p. 767.)


No 23.
N° 30, 31, 32, 33.
The coping of a wall and ceiling in the temple of Nemesis at Rhamnus.
(Hittorff, id., pl. 10, fig. 9, p. 768.)
No 24.
Fragment of mosaic-work found in Sicily. (Hittorff, id., pl. 5, fig. 5,
p. 761.)
No. 25, 26, 27, 29.
Interlaced ornaments, (Greco-Roman style.)
No 28.
Meanders. (Greco-Roman style.)
Ornaments in terra cotta found at Pallazolle (Hittorff, id., pl. 7, fig. 1,
2, 3, p. 764), with the colouring given by the same author in his res-
toration of the temple of Empedocles. (Pl. 2.)
No 34.
Ornaments. (The same restoration, pl. 3.)
No 35.
Palm leaves.


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ETRUSGAN ART.
JEWELS.
All the objects represented in our plate belong to the Museum of the Louvre; the greater part are in the Campana
Collection and some of the most interesting were found in a tomb discovered by MM. Noel des Vergers and Francois
at Vulci. The most ancient among them do not appear to date further back than the later period of the Roman Re-
public. In the specimens given here Greek and Egyptian influences are noticeable, the latter being especially visible
in the frequent use of the scarabeus.
The fibula formed of a hand with ring and bracelet, and terminating in the form of a serpent, is considered to
be Greek.
The intaglio in the centre of the bezel of a ring (N° 2), which is also capable of being used as a seal, appears
to be of the same origin.
Ear-rings are considered to be the master-pieces of Etruscan jewellery. The kind called d selle, a specimen of
which may be seen in the subject representing a child suspended , in the upper part of the plate on the right hand,
belongs to the best period.
The necklace (N° 1) is reduced to one half the size of the original. N°' 2 and 3 are rings opened out. N“ 4
and 5, represent heads of hair-pins. N“ 6 and 7, represent ear-rings reduced in size. The hand of Venus hol-
ding the apple of Paris is probably Greek.
In some of the objects, of which the use is uncertain, the influence of the later Byzantine and Gothic periods may be
recognized, and it is therefore doubtful whether they can be attributed to the Etruscans.
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GRECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY.
POMPEIAN STYLE.
DECORATIVE ARCHITECTURE.
It is far less to the domains of reality than to those of fancy that this purely decorative architecture belongs,
which we find in the inner walls of the apartments in Herculaneum and Pompeii. Tradition attributes to the pain-
ter Lidius, in the time of Augustus, the invention of these architectural compositions, so elegant though improbable,
whic hare frequently intermingled with maritime scenes and landscapes, or animated by various figures. They
were executed by Greek artists, or by Etruscans working under their influence, and gave great delight to the
Latins who did not seek in them the forms of their own architecture — characterized especially by the use of
vaulted ceilings and arcades — but the elegance and poetry of the Greek art, by which they were so much capti-
wated.
The principal subject of the plate is a painted wall from the Casa delle Suomatrici, taken from the great work
of Zahn : Les plus beaux ornements et les tableaux les plus remarquables de Pompéi, d'Herculanum et de Stabia; Ber-
lin, 1828-30. It is considered one of the finest of its kind.
The two single figures have been added to the design, but they do not exist in the original. One of them, that
of the dancing girl on the dark ground, was discovered in the Torre dell' Annunziata. It is the finest of the
twelve figures which were found in the same apartement and is one of those which Pliny calls Libidines. – The
little winged genius, with Bacchic attributes, which occupies the upper medallion, was found at Cività.
These two figures are taken from the great work of Mazois: Les ruines de Pompéi (4 vols, folio; Firmin Didot).





GREEK-ROMAN GRECO-ROMAIN. GRIECHISCH-ROMISCH.
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GRECO-ROMAN ART.
MOSAICS, PAINTED BAS-RELIEFS, AND MURAL PAINTINGS.
16 17
11 || 8
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The use of mosaic is very ancient; its name is derived from the Greek word Mojax, Muse.
a If an invention », says M. Barré, a is attributed to the Muses collectively, and not to some particular artist or spe-
cial divinity of the second rank; if that invention has never become the theme of the narrations of poets and fabulists,
we may be sure that it has been a common practice from time immemorial, and comprises nothing that might be called
a discovery. ”
(Herculanum et Pompéi, by H. Roux and Barré. – Paris, Firmin Didot.)
It is difficult to determine precisely the periods in which the Greeks, and after them the Romans, passed from the
use of simply decorated pavements to mosaics with figures. .
All that we know with any certainty is that the taste for mosaic pavements was only developed amongst the Greeks
under the Asiatic influence of the successors of Alexander.


According to a passage in Pliny, we may believe that mosaics of artificial crystals, used for the imitation of paint-
ing, first appeared at Rome about the time of Vespasian. (See the passage quoted from M. Jeanron in the intro-
duction .)
The specimens contained in our plate may be thus divided :
N" l to 7, mosaics found at Herculaneum and Pompeii.
N“ 6 from the House of thc'Faun, and n" 7 from the House of Polyhius, both at Pompeii.
N°' 8 and 9 represent painted has-reliefs at Pompeii.
N" 10 to 20, are taken from panels, friezes, borders and mural paintings.
All these specimens are reproduced from the great works of Zahn and Mazois.


CHINESE. C H l N @l S. ' CHIHESISCH.

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CHINESE ART.
MEANDERS AND SCALLOPS.
The specimens contained in the accompanying plate are taken from vases in bronze incrusted with tin, silver, or
gold, in the possession of the Baroness de Rothschild and Messrs. Burty, Evans, Laurens, and Mentzer; some are me-
dern, others of the highest antiquity. All were exhibited at the Exposition Orientalc, organised by the Union renlrale
des arts applique's d l’industrie in 1869.
The greater number are represented in the illustrated catalogue, in 42 folio volumes (Bibl. Nat.), of all the vases
formerly contained in the Imperial Museum of Pekin, a great number of which were unfortunately destroyed at the
sack of the Summer Palace. This loss is to be regretted from an historical as well as from an artistic point of view, as
many of the vases were manufactured in commemoration of historical events, and thus served as memorials of facts
and dates, as has been stated by M. Stanislas Julien.
This great Chinese scholar, when exhibiting a sketch of one of these vases, the inscription on which proved that
it was offered to the emperor Wen Wang, 1200 years before our era, 2'. 0. about the time ofthe siege of Troy, asser-
ted that there were some even more ancient.
From the ornamentalist’s point of view few studies are so interesting as that of these spirited meanders, so diffe-
rent, notwithstanding their similarity of style, from the Greek meanders with their lineal rigidity. These orna-
mental constructions, the symmetry of which is so ingeniously varied , give a high idea of the decorative art of the
ancient Chinese, and are capable of numerous applications in modern decoration.





CHINESE AND JAPANESE C H | N O S & JAPO NA Š CHINESSCH UND JAPANESISCH
lmp Lernercier &C'Paris
Lith par Durin FIRMIN DIDOT FRERES, FILS & C" EDITFURS





CHINESE AND JAPANESE ART.
CLOISONNE OR PARTITIONED ENAMEL.
We have ventured to unite under the title of Chinese and Japanese the various specimens of enamel collected in
our plate. They do in fact belong to one and the same style, as the art of ornamentation in Japan was formed under
the influence of the Chinese and presents no special characteristic to account for the esteem in which its productions of
are held, other than perfection of workmanship and superiority of individual taste.
If it is difficult to distinguish, in this genre, what comes from China, and what from Japan, it is frequently still
more difficult to decide whether any particular piece belongs to ancient or to modern times. A few connoisseurs may
distinguish them by the method of their manufacture or the use of certain enamels; but the system of ornamentation
has in general remained the same and has changed the less from the circumstance that the most recent productions
are merely copies of ancient ones. M. Jacquemart, in his Merveilles de la Céramique, speaks thus on the subject :
& The Chinese are most skilful forgers and they speculate on the taste of their fellowcountrymen for ancient and valuable works. It has happened
in China, as with us, that the talent of imitators has succeeded in giving to their works a reputation and price equal to that of the originals. "
CHINESE. Nos 16, 17.
Collection of M. Baur.
Nos 1 to 4. Exposition Orientale of 1869.
Collection of M. Ed. André. JAPANESE.
Exposition Orientale of 1869.
Nos 18 to 21.
Collection of M. Coerli Dugléré.
Exposition Orientale of 1869.
Nos 4 to 11.
Manuscripts from the Bibl. Nat.
Cabinet des Estampes.
CHINESE.
Nos 22, 23.
Nos 12, 13.
Collection of M. Dutuit.
Exposition Orientale of 1869.
Collection of M. Monbel.
Nos 14, 15. Id. of M. Dutuit.
Manuscripts from the Bibl. Nat. Exposition Orientale of 1869.


In plate * the ornaments are on a green ground and consequently the effect of the whole is rather dull. Here
the frequent use of blue grounds and sometimes of yellow, black, white, and red ones tends to give the whole a
more brilliant aspect. N° 23 is an example of pierced cloisonné enamel.
".


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*
JAPANESE ART.
CLOISONNE ENAMEL.
Amongst the productions of this highly decorative Eastern art, the Japanese style occupies a position that for-
bids us to pass it by in silence.
We give an interesting specimen of it in the accompanying plate, which contains a number of examples all taken
from the same object : a copper dish in cloisonné enamel decorated on both sides. The upper part of our illus-
tration is occupied by a portion of the whole work, separate details of which are grouped in the lower part.
Japanese art, although very ingenious in the employment and combination of geometric lines, does not confine
itself to that alone. The figures of flowers and animals are also treated with much purity, and it is to be noticed,
that the interior divisions, which are unavoidable from the very nature of the work, always leave the outline
of the object distinct.
The colours are like those of the original in the relative value of the tones, but are rather less dark as a .
whole; it was thought that a greater degree of freshness and brilliancy would, probably, better represent the
original state of the model, and, at any rate, would make it a more useful object of imitation for modern art.
(See Ch. Burty, Emaux cloisonnés, anciens et modernes, Paris, 1868.)





CHINESISCH llND JAPANESISCH .
CHINUIS ET JAPUNAIS.
CHINESE AND JAPANESE.


mum-moor FRERES FILS a cie éousuas.





CHINESE AND JAPANESE ART.
SILKS AND RUNNING PATTERNS.
The silk which forms the principal object in our plate is one of the finest examples of the decoration of
woven fabrics that it would be possible to study.
Yellow — the colour which Ziegler calls the eldest daughter of the light – forms the ground : it is the livery
of the reigning dynasty of the Tai-thsing in China. The dragons with fours claws, which ornament it, would at
once indicate to the Chinese the rank of the person for whom it was destined.
a The emperor, says M. Jacquemart (Merveilles de la céramique), a his sons, and the princes of the first and
second rank, bear as their attribute a dragon with five claws. The princes of the third and fourth rank bear
the same dragon with four claws; whilst those of the fifth rank and the mandarins have for their emblem
merely a serpent with four claws, called Mang. )
It may be noticed in this fabric that the effect is obtained, not by gradations of tints, but by abrupt opposition of
colours, and that the white separating outline enables the eye at once to grasp the design; these outlines are so nar-
row as to be tinged by the neighbouring colours, with the exception of the white surrounding the dragons which
is wider, and in consequence more intense and luminous, and, as it were, creates an atmosphere in which the
monsterS move.
We have endeavoured, by graduating the tint of the ground, to imitate the play of the silky fabric under the
action of light.
This piece of silk covers a Chinese book in the Cabinet des Estampes of the Bibl. Nat.
The specimen on a black ground in the lower part of the plate is Chinese; the small ones at the sides on
a black ground and all the others are Japanese.





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CHINESE ART.
FREE DECORATION.
On the green ground in the upper part of this plate is a specimen of the ornamentation in which Asiatic taste re-
vels in complete liberty, utterly regardless of the mutual relations of the objects represented. The combinations and
oppositions of tones are extremely fine. The bold touches of intense red-brown, and the occasional use of black, suc-
cessfully prevent all dulness, and give to the ground-work an appearance of aerial lightness.
The pattern on the ground of yellow ochre is a fragment of embroidery in which the gradations of effect are more
boldly given, and in which there is generally more vigour. It is a perfect model of the style, and we may no-
tice in it that it is by the white outlines—an unexampled method of isolation — that the design conquers the over-
whelming strength of the ground and stands out with the requisite firmness and relief.





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CHINESE ANI) JAPANESE ART.
RUNNING ORNAMENTATION.
N" 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
Come from Chinese sources.
All the others are products of Japanese skill.
It is difficult to produce such powerful effects by means so simple, and Europeans could scarcely do better than
study how best to emulate that bold intermixture of intense colours which, directed by Asiatic taste, produces
such marvellous results.





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INDIAN ART.
ENGRAVINGS IN NIELLO AND ON METALS.
It would be difficult to assign a date to the greater part of the illustrations given in the accompanying plate. This
difficulty is nearly always found in dealing with the productions of the extreme East; where the consequence, in an
artistic point of view, of the fixity of the religious and political system, is a sort of immobility in perfection, which
allows neither progress nor decay. To this cause may also be added that faculty of exact imitation, so characteristic
of the Orientals, which enables them to give modern manufactures the appearance of the ancient ones, which are
more generally esteemed by amateurs.
However this may be, all must admire the order, propriety, and appreciation of general effect, which distinguish
these delicate decorations in metal.
All the specimens given in our plate are taken from objects of daily llS0.
16 17
19 14.
Nos 1 to 6. No 10.
ORNAMENTS ON Two NARGHILEs, belonging to Jacquelet Bey. ORNAMENTs on A EweR, belonging to M. Léonce Mahon.
No 1 1.
Nos 7 to 9. ORNAMENTs on A DISH, belonging to M. Schefer.
ORNAMENTS ON A EweR, ON THE Bowl of AEwBR, AND ON A PIERCED cover, Nos 12 t0 15.
belonging to Baroness Rothschild. ORNAMENTS ON A EweR, AND ON DISHEs, belonging to M. Werdé-Delisle.





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INDIAN ART.
PAINTINGS, AND ENGRAVING IN NIELL0.
The various examples, here given, in which appear all the richness and harmony of the Oriental style, have
been taken from objects which were shown in the Exhibition organized in 1869, in the Champs-Élysées, by the
Central Union of Fine Arts applied to Manufactures. The greater part, it will be observed, serve as decorations
of weapons.
Nos 1 to 4.
Ornaments taken from a bow belonging to M. Jacquemart.
Nos 5 and 6.
Sheath of a dagger, belonging to Col. Bro de Conières.
Nos 7 and 8.
Ornaments from the sheath of a sword belonging to M. Jules Michelin.
No 9.
Ornament from a weapon belonging to M. Jacquemart.
Nos 10 to 12.
Ornaments from the neck of a bottle belonging to M. Reiber.
No 13.
Ornaments from a weapon belonging to the Baroness Salomon de Rothschild.
No 14.
Rim of a jug, from the same collection.





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INDIAN ART.
FLORA, AND RUNNING ORNAMENTS,
EMBROIDERY, PAINTING, AND NIELLO.
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No 1. Nos 14 to 23.
Borders and grounds from paintings in manuscripts.
Embroidered fabric, belonging to M. Moulin. (Exposition de l'Union
centrale de 1869.) Nos 24, 25.
Cloisonnés.
Nos 26, 27.
Nos 2 t0 13. Embroideries.
Nos 28 to 31.
Borders and grounds from paintings in manuscripts. (Bibl. Nat. Ca-
binet des Estampes.) Engravings in niello from the Eaposition de l’Union centrale de 1869.
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INDIAN ART.
MODERN DECORATION.
We shall confine ourselves here to a simple enumeration of the subjects in our plate, without referring to the general
characteristics of the style.
No 1.
A stand of painted wood, belonging to Jacquelet Bey.
No 2.
Fragment of an Indian slipper, in velvet, embroidered and Spangled,
belonging to M. J. Jacquemart.
No 3.
Fragment of an Indian slipper, embroidered in gold and mother of
pearl on a velvet ground, belonging to M. J. Jacquemart.
Nos 4, 5.
Subjects taken from a dagger, onyx ground with gold enamel, be-
longing to the Baroness Salomon de Rothschild.
Nos. 6, 7.
Goblet on a small pedestal, belonging to the same.
No. 8, 9.
Borders of miniatures; Bibl. Nat.
Nos 10, 11.
Palm-leaves, from miniatures; Bibl. Nat.
No 12.
Tray, papier-mâché, belonging to M. Bellenot.
Nos 13, 14, 15.
Goblets of the same material, belonging to the same.
Nos 16 to 19.
Ornaments on papier-mâché objects, belonging to M. Verdé-Delisle.
Except N” 8, 9, 10, 11, all these objects were exhibited in the Exposition de l'Union centrale des arts appliqués
a l'Industrie, 1869.





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PERSIAN ART
PRINTED LINEN.
FIGURES OF FLOWERS AND ANIMALS.
It is unnecessary to remind our readers of the popularity which chintzes have so long enjoyed, and of the part they
still take in the ordinary furniture of houses. It was especially during the last century that the French manufactories
for the imitation of these fabrics carried on so extensive a trade; but they are still so much in use that it cannot
be superfluous to give examples of some of the best original models, in order to preserve the style, and prevent too
great a deviation from it.
In the examples given in our plate — fabrics of Eastern manufacture, in which the Persian style properly so called
seems in some points to resemble the Indian — we shall find in addition to the Persian flora, figures of animals (es-
pecially birds), and even the human figure (1), treated in a manner which keeps a middle course between the imita-
tion of nature and the employment of conventional forms, sometimes inserted arbitrarily and without reference to
surrounding objects, and at others grouped in the form of a regular ornament, as in the fragment to the left of the
plate, at the lower corner.
(1) Notwithstanding the somewhat singular appearance of the figure in the centre of the composition we have thought it better not to mo-
dify it in any way, as to do so would have caused a want of accuracy and have taken from the object the certificate of its origin.






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PERSIAN ART.
ENGRAVINGS IN NIELL0.
The black grounds of these ornaments are obtained by crossed lines filled in with black as may be seen in N° 1.
The black of these grounds is therefore not absolute, as in the reduced scale of the plate it has necessarily been
made to appear; hence the original has a still richer and more harmonious effect.
15 10
7
11 12
14 5 6|| 14"
15
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8
5 9 &
No 1. No 11.
Design taken from a bowl. (Comte de Mornay.) Borders from a bowl. (Comte de Mornay.)
No 2.
No 12.
Design taken from a bowl. (M. Schefer.)
Borders from a bowl. (M. Dick.)
Nos 3, 4.
Angular patterns from the necks of vases. (M. Méchin.) No 13.
No. 5, 6. Borders from a snuffbox. (M. Collinot.)
Running designs (M. Schefer.) -
N* 14, 14 bis, (in conjunction).
No. 7, 8.
ders from a vase. (M. Schefer.
Borders taken from a bowl. (M. Reiber.) Borders from a vase. (M. Schefer.)
No. 9, 10. No 15.
Borders taken from a bowl. (M. Goupil.) Cartouche from a bowl. (M. Crampon.)
All these objects were exhibited in the Exposition de l'Union centrale des arts industriels, 1869.





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PERSIAN ART.
EARTHENWARE.
The various examples in our plate give an accurate idea of the patterns commonly employed in Persian
earthenware.
These patterns usually consist of pure arabesques, frequently combined with ornamental flowers, the drawing
of which more or less resembles natural types. Among them it is easy to recognize the rose, the Indian pink, the
tulip, the hyacinth, etc.... Sometimes too, the subject is animated by some chimerical figure, such as the bird
occupying the centre of the magnificent dish belonging to the Comte de Nieuwerkerke.
The following are the sources from whence we have taken our examples.









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DISHES. N" to 5.
Collection of M. Scheffcr.
N° 1.
Collection of the Comte de Nieuwerkerke, Superintendent of Mu-
seums. Collection of D' Mandi.
N" 6, 7.


No 8. GLAZED TILES,
Collection of M. Lequen.
Nos 14, 12.
No 9.
Collection of M. Parvillée.
Collection of M. P. Saline.
No 13.
- No 10. Collection of Dr Meymar.
Collection of Baron de Seneval. - No 14.
Collection of M. Collinot.
All the above objects were shown in the Oriental Exhibition of 1869, organized by the Central Union of Fine
Arts applied to Manufactures.


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PERSIAN ART.
TAPESTRY, AND RUNNING ORNAMENTS.
The carpet represented in the accompanying plate belongs to the finest period of Persian art, the sixteenth cen-
tury of our era. The natural flower, in such frequent use amongst the Persians, takes quite asecondary part therein
while the conventional flora appears in all its splendour. This carpet contains the most important varieties of the
Oriental palm; the arrangement of the colours is extremely good and quite typical. It belongs to M. Bouvier, painter.
The nine specimens of running ornament come from two copies of the Schah Nameh, a work to which we have
_ already referred (plate w), belonging to the Bibl. Nat. (489 and 494, Réserve, supplement persan). They con-
tain very interesting elementary geometrical designs, although in the use of this kind of ornament the Persians have
not, on the whole, equalled the Arabs or the Moors.

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*G.
PERSIAN ART.
DECORATIONS OF MANUSCRIPTS.
The first of the two subjects composing the accompanying plate represents a page from the Chāh Nameh or
Schah-Nameh, a manuscript in the National Library, Paris (Persian Supplement, N° 489, Reserve); the second a page
from another copy of the same work also in manuscript and belonging to the same library (Supplement N° 494).
The Schah-Nameh is a history in verse of the ancient Kings of Persia by Abul Casim Mansur Firdusi, who spent
thirty years in the composition of the poem, which consists of 60,000 distiches, and is dedicated to the celebrated
Mahmud the Ghaznevide. Firdusi died in the year 411 of the Hegira (1020 of our era).
This poem, which is one of the most important works in the Persian language, has been the subject of nume-
rous philological studies. A very fine edition has lately been published at the Imprimerie Nationale, the translation
of which, and the notes, as well as the revision of the text, are due to M. J. Mohl, of the Institute of France.
The manuscript N° 489 was bought at Ispahan by Otter, and appears to have come from the library of the Sofis.
The National Library also possesses another copy of Schah-Nameh, of very great beauty, bearing the date 1012
of the Hegira, and entered in the Persian Supplement, under N° 490 of the Reserve.





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PERSIAN ART.
CARPETS.
The accompanying plate shows the ground and border of a kneeling-carpet of Persian manufacture, in which
the boldness and elegance of the scrolls are as remarkable as the perfect harmony of the colours.
The cloth ground is ornamented with raised embroidery of the same material edged with silk (1).
The peculiar form of the flowers on the white and black grounds, and also on the corners of the black ground
of the principal subject, shows the influence that Indian and Persian art have exercised on each other, and also
the closeness of their resemblance.
(1) This beautiful carpet excited much attention in the exhibition of the Union centrale des Beaux-Arts appliqués à l'industrie, where it formed a part of the
Oriental Museum. It is to the kindness of M. Léonce Mahon, to whom it belongs, that we are indebted for its reproduction here.





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ARABIAN ART.
BINDING.
This plate represents the binding of the large Koran belonging to M. Ambroise Firmin Didot, roses and borders
from which fill the two succeeding plates.
This Koran is of very large dimensions, measuring no less than 3 ft. 5 inches in length and 1 ft. 8 5“ inches
in breadth.
Although the manuscript ornamentation of the pages reproduced in the succeeding plates presents a mixture of
the Persian and Arabian styles, in the binding pure Arabian art, characterized by strict adherence to geometrical
forms, is alone visible.
The principal effect is produced by combinations of roses, in the use and arrangement of which the Arabs have at
all times displayed so much taste and ingenuity. In this class of composition interest attaches mainly to the incidental
figure which arises from the meeting of two roses of unequal size. This incidental figure is worthy of interest in the
present example, for the geometric clasp is in itself valuable, its wide double heptagon destroying the monotony that
might otherwise be found in the style. The design in the centre of the lower part of the plate is a border from a
corner of the same binding.
The other borders are taken from the interior and exterior edges.





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ARABIAN' ART.
ILLUMINATIONS OF MANUSCRIPTS.
ROSE-WORK.
The roses grouped in the accompanying plate are all taken from a richly adorned manuscript of the Koran, of
unusual size, which, at the present time, forms part of the library of M. Ambroise Firmin Didot.
Arabian art is well represented in it, not merely by the complete absence of living figures, the representation
of which was forbidden by the Koran, but also by the excellence of the geometrical combinations. Several of the
characteristics mentioned by Owen Jones (Grammar of Ornament), as typical of Arabian decoration, are to be
found in it; such, for example, as the continual interlacing of curved lines attached to a common centre and ra-
diating towards the circumference. This is especially to be noticed in the rose in the centre of the plate.
The use of the flower combined with the lineal ornament of which it forms a part shows in some degree the
influence of Persian Art upon Arabian ornamentation.





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ARABIAN ART.
ILLUMINATIONS OF MANUSCRIPTS.
ORNAMENTED INSCRIPTIONS.
The fragments of which this plate is composed, have been taken from the same sources as those of the
rose-work, pl. A'. . They are from the large illuminated Koran which forms a part of the library of M. Ambroise
Firmin Didot. What we there said of the general style of these paintings, is also applicable here.
The subjects represented are taken from the borders of the ornamented inscriptions in Cufic (old Arabic) cha-
racters which separate the hundred and fourteen principal divisions of the text. There are examples of these cha-
racters in the two fragments on each side of the central rose.
The nature of these ornaments renders them essentially suitable as models of great variety and beauty in the art
of gold and silver enamelling.
The influence of Persian art in this style of decoration has already been shown, and here we find traces, as
easily recognised, of the Byzantine style. See for instance the angle that occupies the left, in the lower part of the plate.


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MOORISH ART.
ARCHITECTURAL DECORATION.
The various specimens collected in the accompanying plate are all taken from the Alhambra, that marvellous pa-
lace of the Moorish kings of Granada, and the most complete expression of the style which borrowed its first
elements from the Byzantines, while developing them with greater richness and amplitude. What is most striking
in this system (and it is a merit of the first order in architectural decoration) is, that the grand features of the
ornamentation are in accordance with the true principles of building, which unite with them in harmonizing the
details.
It is for this reason that notwithstanding their low superadded reliefs, these ornaments appear, by an agreeable
illusion, to add to the solidity of the building they decorate.



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BYZANTIN E ART.
MURAL PAINTINGS, MOSAICS,
AND
PAINTINGS FROM MANUSCRIPTS.
We class the subjects in the accompanying plate in historical order, commencing with the earliest.

























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Paintings in Sl Sophia, dating from the sixth century, after Sal-
zenberg.
These paintings are almost exactly in the Greek style.
MOSAICS.
No 6.
Church of St George at Thessaloniea, after C. Texier. (L’Armém'e, la
Perse et la. Mesopotamia, 2 vols. folio, Firmin Didot.)
N“ 7 to 16.
Paintings collected at Constantinople, seventh and eighth centuries ,
after Salzenberg.
N° 17.
Enamelled border.
N'" 18 to 28.
Marginal paintings, eighth and ninth centuries, ancient ornaments
little altered. (Bibl. Nat., Reserve. MS. 139; Greek section.)
N“ 29, 30.
Paintings from a manuscript executed about 860 for the Emperor
Basil the Macedonian. (Bibl. Nat., Reserve, N0 510, Greek section.)
N" 31, 32.
Manuscript. (Bibl. Nat, Reserve, N0 64; Greek section.)
N" 33, 34.
Mosaics; the first from Palermo, the second from Monreale, tweltth
century.
N" 35 to 40.
Details from the various manuscripts mentioned above.


MIOOLE AGES M OY EN A GE MITTEL. ALTER
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MIDDLE AGES.
VIII CENTURY.
DECORATIONS OF MANUSCRIPTS.
The thirty-eight examples given in our plate belong to a transition period of great interest, the interval between
the Greco-Roman or Pompeian style (the traces of which are specially noticeable in N” 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 11, 13,
18, 29, 30, 32), and the Byzantine style properly so called. All are taken from illuminations of manuscripts, in
which ornamental art seems to have sought refuge during a considerable part of the middle ages. They are copied
from the following manuscripts.
Nos 1 to 26. Nos 27 to 38.
Gospels of SAINT-SERNIN (Toulouse). Gospels of SAINT-MEDARD (Soissons).
Latin manuscript written by Godescald for the Emperor Charlemagne. Latin manuscript.
Library of the Louvre. Bibliothèque Nationale.
If any of our readers should wish to study this interesting style more fully, we refer them to the work of Comte
Aug. de Bastard, Peintures et ornements des manuscrits. (Paris, 1835; impl. folio.)


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MIDDLE AGES.
BYZANTINE STYLE.
MOSAIC, INLAID-WORK, ENGRAVING IN NIELL0, AND PAINTING.
The following is a plan of the contents of the plate, with details of the sources whence the examples have
been obtained.
Nos 1 to 4. No 11.
The churches of St. George, St. Demetrius, and St. Sophia at Thes- PALATINE CHAPEL, at Palermo.
salonica. (From M. C. Texier : Description de l'Asie Mineure, 3 vols.
Nos 12 t0 17.
folio, Firmin Didot.)
GREEK MANUSCRIPT, Bibliothèque Nationale, N° 64.
Nos 5, 6. No 18.
CATHEDRAL of Ravello. Another Greek MS. N° 139.
Nos 7, 8. No 19.
Another Greek MS. No 230.
CATHEDRAL of Monreale. .
Nos 20 to 22.
No. 9, 10.
TAKEN from the Memorie spettanti alla Calcografia del comm. Conte
ZIZA CHAPEL, at Palermo. Leopoldo Cicognara, 1831.
We are indebted to M. Moyaux, architect, for the mosaics from Palermo, copied by him from the originals, as
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MIDDLE AGES.
XI CENTURY.
BYZANTINE ORNAMENTS.
These ornaments, which are interesting both from an historical and artistic point of view, are all — with the excep-
tion of the flower occupying the centre of the upper part of the plate — taken from a very curious manuscript in the
Bibliothèque nationale (Latin supplement, N° 1075), entitled Evangéliaire ou Apocalypse d’Aquitaine ou d'Espagne.
The central flower is taken from another Greek manuscript in the same library (B. N. Réserve, N° 230.)
Independently of the original value of these fragments obtained from a source which is very little known, it is
interesting to notice, from the examples they offer, the very manifest influence of Byzantine on Arabian art — a phe-
nomenon which is not rare in the history of nations, where we frequently find the conquering power borrowing and
adapting to itself the arts of the conquered.
It is especially in the red and yellow leaves on the pink ground in N° 1, and also in N* 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 13 to 17,
that we find the outlines and general forms appropriated by Arabian art, though with greater breadth and simplicity,
and in compositions of greater power.





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- 16
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Numbers 1 to 7 represent mosaics in the Ziza chapel at Palermo. The drawings were taken by M. Hittorff, by
whose son they have been kindly communicated to us.
Numbers 8 to 11 represent cloisonné and filigree enamels, designed as settings for precious stones, after a copy of
the Gospels in the Louvre.
The specimens numbered 12 to 19 are taken from frescoes in a monastery near Trebizonde, collected by M. Charles
Texier. They represent fragments of the embroidered materials, ornamented with pearls and precious stones, with
which the Byzantines clothed themselves from head to foot. It was this wide-spread taste for objects of costly
workmanship, that caused St. Chrysostom to say : & All our admiration is now reserved for goldsmiths and
WeaWei'S. )
& Artists, says Batissier, & were obliged to renounce their old traditions, in order to create new types, and
they strove rather for richness of effect, than for beauty. ”


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XII CENTURY.
DECORATIONS IN MOSAIC.
The sixteen specimens of mosaic work grouped in our plate are obtained from the following sources.
Nos 1 to 12.
PALATINE CHAPEL At PALERMo.
The probable date and style of this edifice are thus described by Batissier (Histoire de l'art monumental dans l'antiquité et au
moyen-dge, p. 397):
“When the Normans arrived in Sicily, that province was rich in monuments. King Roger could not help admiring them extremely, and in
the buildings undertaken by him he employed Byzantine architects, who had already adopted the innovations made in architecture by Arabian
taste. The churches built by the new conquerors present an evident combination of the Greek and Latin styles.
“Amongst the most beautiful and curious basilicas of that century that have come down to us, is the Chapel Royal of Palermo, built about
the year 129, by King Roger, all the arcades of which are pointed, and the ceiling divided into compartments. "
Nos 13, 14, 15. No 6.
PALACE OF THE ZISA, AT PALERMo. CATHEDRAL of SALERNo.





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XIW AND XV CENTURIES.
MARQUETRY.
The first twenty numbers in the accompanying plate represent mosaics in ivory and wood on the Poissy altar-
screen, a magnificent work in ivory, in the finest style of the fourteenth century, and so much admired in the
Louvre.
This altar-screen was presented in 1416, by John of France, brother of Charles V, and by Jeanne, Countess
of Auvergne and Boulogne, his second wife, whom he had married in 1389.
N" 21 to 27 are taken from various ivory boxes of the same period in the Sauvageot collection.
N" 28 to 31 represent mosaics in wood of the fifteenth century taken from the pulpit of Saint Ambrose at Milan.
These various examples, although many of them belong to a period more or less approaching the Renaissance,
are in the Byzantine style. An art like marquetry, which can only be worked by simple means, is little likely
to follow the successive modifications of decorative art.
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MIDDLE AGES.
VII, VIII AND IX CENTURIES.
CELTIC ORNAMENTS.
Celtic is the name most frequently given to this style by those who have studied it most recently; it is,
however, often called Anglo-Saxon. Some critics consider it to be a mixture of the Scandinavian and Byzantine styles,
but it is considered by others, especially by J. O. Westwood, (See The Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones,) as indi-
genous and due entirely to the primitive inhabitants of the British Isles. As essential characteristics of this style in
its earliest period, the same writer mentions: 1" the absence of all imitations of foliage or plants; 2" the exclusive
use of simple geometrical figures, interlacings of ribbons, diagonal or spiral lines, etc.
It is to this style that the thirty-three examples given in the accompanying plate refer. They are taken from the
following documents :
WII CENTURY.
N” 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 25, 28, 29, 30.
THE Gospels, on Book of DURRow. (Trinity College, Dublin.)
Symbols of the Evangelists and ornamental pages.
Nos 4, 33.
Frontispiece of the Gospels of Saint Mark and Saint Luke.
No 26.
THE LINDISFARNE Gospels.
Ornamental page.
Nos 22, 31.
THE Gospels of SAINT LUKE. (British Museum.)
Frontispiece.
VIII CENTURY.
No 18.
CoMMENTARIES ON THE PSALMS BY CASSIoDoRUs & manu Bedae ».
(Library of Durham Cathedral.)
David conquering.
No. 8, 24.
The Royal Psalmist.
No. 2, 14.
THE Gospel of SAINT MATTHEw, witH THE SYMBols of THE EvANGELISTs.
(Library of the Convent of Saint-Gall.)
IX CENTURY.
No 6.
LATIN Gospel. (Library of Saint-Gall.)
Ornamental page, and the Transfiguration.
No 10.
MANUSCRIPT IN THE SAME LIBRARY.
The Crucifixion.
No 27.
PsALTER AT St JoHN's BoLL., CAMBRIDGE.
Victory of David over Goliath, and over the Lion, and commence-
ment of Psalms 1 and 102.


The other, and less important subjects (N°' 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, ‘23, 32) are taken from Manuscripts in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford, the Library of the Convent of Saint-Gall, and the Library of Trinity College, Dublin.
As regards the specimens the names of which have been given above, it may be noted, that the subjects of which
they form a part are given in full by J. 0. Westwood in his great work, Fac-Similes of the Miniatures and Orna-
ments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripti, to which we must refer those who desire to make a thorough study of
this particular branch of art, as, in accordance with our plan we are limited to giving only some of the most striking
examples, such as those comprised in our plate.


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MIDI) LE AGES.
VII, VIII, IX, X AND XI CENTURIES.
CELTIC ORNAMENTS.
We have already explained the origin of this name, given by modern criticism to the productions of Northern
art during a certain portion of the Middle Ages.
&
The plate to which we allude W presented this style in its first phase, characterized by the exclusive use of
purely lineal and geometrical combinations; and the most ancient of the documents collected in this plate belong
to the same style (N" 1 to 12).
But this style begins to change in N* 13, 15, and 16 (eighth and ninth centuries), and we see the heads of chi-
merical animals appearing in the midst of interlacings, which they terminate; and afterwards the further we
advance into the ninth and tenth centuries, the more does the line lose its mathematical regularity, and the more
free does the form become, assuming at last all the varieties and caprices of nature. It is to this period, called the
time of exfoliation, that N” 18 to 33 (tenth and eleventh centuries) belong. Lastly, in the four magnificent initial letters
bearing the numbers 34 to 37, we find perfectly united those two elements of fancy and symmetry, which should
never be separated in well arranged decorations.
The 36 subjects in the plate may be thus grouped.
7" CENTURY. Nos 9 and 10.
Nos 1 to 6. RoyAL Manuscripts M. S. I. E., VI. (British Museum.)
THE Gospels of DURRow. (Trin. Coll., Dublin.
( oll., Dublin 7" AND 8" CENTURIES.
s Nos 7 and 8. No 11.
Book of KELLs. (Trin. Coll., Dublin.) CoDEx AUREUs. (Royal Library, Stockholm.


8" CENTURY.
No 12.
Gospels of THOMAs, Abbot of Hohenaugia. (Library of Trêves.)
No 13.
CoMMENTARIES on THE PsALMs, by Cassiodorus. (Library of Durham Ca-
thedral.)
8" AND 9." CENTURIES.
No 14.
Gospels of St CHAD. (Lichfield Cathedral.)
9* CENTURY.
No 15.
PsALTER. (St John's Coll., Cambridge.)
- - Nos 16, 17.
Gospels of MAC DURNAN. (Archiepiscopal Library, Lambeth.)
40th CENTURY.
No 18.
LATIN Gospels. (Trin. Coll., Cambridge.)
Nos 19 to 21.
Codex VossIANUs. (Bodleian Library.)
No 22.
BENEDICTIONALE of S' ETHELwt LF. (Duke of Devonshire's Library.)
i 1"CENTURY.
Nos 23 and 24.
GRAND LATIN PsALTER. (Public Library at Boulogne.)
Nos 25 to 33.
ARUNDEL PsALTER. (British Museum.)
Nos 34 to 37.
INITIAL LETTERS FROM THE ABBEY of S. GERMAIN DEs PREs. (Library of
M. Ambroise Firmin Didot.)


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witness to the last of transformation of antique ornament, properly so called, still employed in architecture in the
decoration of the semi-circle. It was scarcely before the thirteenth century that the imitation of indigenous flora,
trefoils, quatre-foils and volute of crossettes changed the aspect of decoration to that style which is called Gothic or
pointed.
In the accompanying plan given below, N" l to 16 belong to the manuscript of Beatus, the others to the ma-







nuscript of Luxeuil.
13 14


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MIDDLE AGES.
EMBROIDERIES, PAINTINGS, AND ENAMELS.
The specimens contained in this plate may be classified in the following way, according to the sources from
which they are derived.
11. - 4. 12
5
9 1 10
7 • B
28 3 20
15
16 - 8
17 I5 - *
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21 2 25
22 26
25 27
Nos 1 to 4. Nos 9 to 15.
Fabrics of silk and gold of the twelfth century, found in the tombs Mural paintings from the churches of Amencharads-Rada and Edshult,
of the abbaye Saint-Germain des Prés. (A. Lenoir, Statistique mo– in Sweden, from the fine work of M. M. Mandelgren.
numentale de Paris.)
Nos 16 to 27.
Nos 5 to 8. - - - -
Enamels from the great reliquary in the treasury of Aix-la-Chapelle.
Mural paintings of the thirteenth century from the chapel of Notre-
Dame de la Roche (Seine-et-Oise), and from the Jacobin convent Nos 28, 29.
at Agen.
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MIDDLE AGES.
XIV CENTURY.
ILLUMINATIONS OF MANUSCRIPTS.
The various designs of which this plate is composed are all taken from a remarkable manuscript belonging to the
Bibliothèque nationale (Book of St. Thomas Aquinas, in Latin, folio, N° 7241*; Codex Colbert, 1301).
These interesting illuminations must be referred to Italian art of the fourteenth century. They are in remarkable
conformity with those of the manuscript of the Statuts de l'ordre du Saint-Esprit au droit désir ou du naud, of
which count Horace de Wielcastel, in the preface to his reproduction of the same (Engelmann and Graff, 1853), says:
“The date of 1352, which it bears, brings its pictures into the schools of Cimabue and Giotto (the former of whom was still living in 1302,
“ and the latter died in 1336); and, Indeed, the style of these beautiful miniatures bears the character of the school of these celebrated artists,
a especially that of Simone Memmi. "
These ornaments, which for their precision and boldness are as applicable to metal work, especially in iron, as
to the decoration of flat surfaces, occupy an important place in the art which serves as a sort of transition between
the Byzantine style modified by Moorish art, and that of the Renaissance.





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MIDDLE AGES.
PAINTINGS ON MANUSCRIPTS.
The sixteen unnumbered examples in our plate have been taken from an Italian manuscript of the fourteenth
century, attributed to Simone Memmi, of whom we have already spoken in plate. 'They form a continuation
of the examples contained in that plate, the principal characteristics being the same in both, though in the accom-
panying illustration there is greater variety in the shapes, and a more frequent use of the human figure and of the
forms of animals.
N“ 17, 18, 19 and 20, are also Italian, and may be regarded as types of the marginal decorations and initial
letters of the manuscripts of the fifteenth century. They are taken from a Suetonius and a Justinian lent by
M. Bachelin-Detlorenne.


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It is, as may easily be seen, from the best times of church window ornamentation that our examples have
been taken, for, though it is impossible to render anything like their brilliancy and transparency, yet it is well to
bring before the public designs and combinations of colours as models for an industry still in full activity.
The specimens chosen present, for the most part, general forms, which might be utilized in many different com-
binations.
Our readers may refer to the work of the Abbés Cahier and Martin (Monographie des vil-raum de la callw'drale
de Bourges; Paris, Poussiclgue-Rusand, 1844), if they wish to knowinore of this interesting period of French na-
tional art — a period of which an eminent critic has said : a Painting on enamel and glass, sculpture and working
in gold were sufficiently advanced to harmonize worthin with architectural science, which had recently expanded
and drawn an inspiration from the magical aspects of Oriental buildings. in (Origine et progrcs dc l’art, études et re-
cherches, par P. A. Jeanron; 1849.)


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XIII, XIV, AND XV CENTURIES.
GRISAILI.E WINDOWS.








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N" 1 to 23.
Cologne Cathedral.
N" 24 to 27.
Borders selected from the monograph of Bourges Cathedral.
N“ 28 to 31.
Strasbourg Cathedral.
Painting on glass attained its highest excellence in the thirteenth century.
N" 33 to 35.
Chartres Cathedral.
. N‘" 36 to 39.
Bourgcs Cathedral.
No“ 32, 40, 41, 42.
Tournai Cathedral.
The original simplicity and eleva-
tion of style was maintained during the fourteenth century, but in the fifteenth century its special characteristics
were lost through excess of ornamentation.
Tournai, the glass of which dates from 1475 to 1500.
This may be noticed in the fragments selected, from the cathedral of


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MIDDLE AGES.
XIII AND XIV CENTURIES.
TILES AND G LAZED FACINGS.
Until the twelfth century rich pavings and the facings of walls were made of mosaic work, or in compartments
of coloured stones – such as jasper, porphyry, marble, etc., or of painted and enamelled stones. In the thir-
teenth century glazed tiles were first used for this purpose.
The following is a plan of the numbers for which there is not space on the plate itself.
15 54 15 35 | 1.4
15 || 17 | 35 37 | 13 | 20
13
35 | 21 – – 7 | 6
58 4!
22 || || 30 – 25
39 42
2 24 H –| 5 || 0
40 23 43
25 1 4 26
10 27 5 9
32 12 31
11 28
XIIIth CENTURY. Nos 5, 22, 27.
Nos 1, 16, 17, 24, 25. Cathedral of Saint-Omer.
Cathedral of Laon. No. 8, 19, 29.
Fontenay (Côte-d'Or).
N* 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 24, 34, 32, 33. No 1 |
Museum of Rouen. Cluny Museum; Paris.
No 4. No 18.
Abbey of Saint-Loup. Reims; Hôtel de ville.


Nos 20, 26.
No 30.
Troyes.
No 23.
Paris, Museum of the Louvre.
No 28.
Troyes, Archives de l'Aube.
Rouen, Palais de Justice.
XIIIth AND XIVth CENTURIES.
Nos 34 to 43.
Taken from various manuscripts in the Bibl. Nat.
N. B. The mean reduction is to the scale of one fourth.
* -
The combinations adopted to secure economy in the manufacture of these tiles are extremely interesting to any
one engaged in decoration.
Our plate presents the varieties most in use.
Nos 1 to 8.
1 Separate tile; complete design.
Nos 9 to 12.
2 Tiles placed together horizontally, forming a border.
Nos 13 to 29.
3 Tile varied in position four times four tiles together forming the
whole pattern.
No 30.
4 Hexagonal pavement, four pieces placed around a square, a
new pattern. -
No 31.
5 Section of large pattern, consisting of nine tiles, and formed of
three varieties.
No 32.
6 Section of still larger pattern, consisting of sixteen tiles, and for-
med of four varieties.
Nos 33 to 43.
7 Various single tiles.


-—_

MIDDLE AGES NI DYE N A G E MI'P'I‘EL- ALTER





MIDDLE AGES.
XW CENTURY.
EMBROIDERY AND DESIGNS FOR INLAYING.
FROM PAINTINGS.
This plate contains twenty-two examples of the decoration of hangings and stuffs, remarkable from their sim-
plicity of design, which does not, however, exclude a striking effect. The designs consist of the union of gold
with a single colour, either by placing the gold on a coloured ground, or, on the contrary, by stamping the
pattern on a gold ground.
These twenty-two subjects are, for the most part, borrowed from different manuscripts in the Bibliothèque
nationale at Paris. The following is a list of them with the numbers given in the plate.
N* 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. No 14.
Manuscript, B. N. French supplements. (No. 542). Manuscript, B. N. (Colbert Collection, No 1174.)
No 15.
Manuscript, B. N. (No. 540.)
No 7.
Sainte-Chapelle de Bourbon-l'Archambault.
Nos 16, 17.
No. 8, 9.
Manuscript, B. N. (No 6,788.)
Window-glass from Moulins.
Nos 18, 19.
The Golden Legend, B. N. (No 6,888.)
No 10.
Manuscript, B. N. (No. 6,789).
Nos 20, 21.
Manuscript, B. N. (No 9,387. A. F.)
No i I.
Manuscript of Monstrelet, B. N. (No 8,299.)
No 22.
Book of Hours of the Schoenborn Family, Manuscript belonging to
Hours of Anne of Brittany (Louvre). M. de Rothschild.
No 13.


II. .
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MIDDLE AGES.
XV CENTURY.
CONVENTIONAL FLORA AND FLOWER - WORK.
The details that fill the accompanying plate — too numerous for us to indicate the sources from which each is
derived — have all been taken from manuscripts of the fifteenth century.
The subjects are, in general, taken from the European flora, sometimes in the simplest form, sometimes in arbi-
trary combinations of different plants with each other, or with figures of animals, and even with the human
face.
The Middle Ages excelled in this sort of fantastic caprice, which may be varied to any amount by that free-
dom of imagination which characterises the style, but in which the principle of certain general forms stands
out clearly. An example of this may be seen in the holly leaf — of such frequent use in manuscripts — and here pre-
sented under so many different aspects, and capable, even apart from illumination, of several applications.
Amongst others we might suggest ornaments in iron-work.


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MIDDLE AGES.
XV CENTURY.
ILLUMINATIONS OF MANUSCRIPTS.
FLOWERS AND JEWELS.
The twenty-five subjects here represented are taken from various manuscripts, obtained from the following
SOUli"CeS.
Nos 1 and 2. Nos 5 and 6.
ILLUMINATED Book of HouRs. (Bibl. Nat. MS. N° 1473; Colbert Coll. VARIOUs MANUSCRIPTs. (Library of the Arsenal.)
No 4824.) No 7
“The Latin text is dated 1398; the illuminations belong to a later time and
may be attributed to Israel van Meckenen. ” Book of Hours of the Shoenborn Family, belonging to M. de Roth-
Schild.
Nos 3 and 4. - - Nos 8 to 25. -
LA LEGENDE DoREE (Bibl. Nat. MS. No 6889), manuscript attributed to Examples of jewellery, taken from the margin of a Seneca (Bibl. Nat.
Jean Foucquet. MS. No 8551).
Although some details of the subjects given here are affected by the capricious and chimerical treatment so
common in the middle ages, they have as a whole, a graceful and serious style, which allows of their being suc-
cessfully imitated in modern times. From this point of view, we may especially notice the practical interest offered
*
by the jewellery, N” 8 to 25.





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MIDDLE AGES.
XW CENTURY (SECOND PERIOD).
ILLUMINATIONS OF MANUSCRIPTS.
The illustrations contained in this plate may be taken as eminently original productions of the French and Flemish
schools before the invasion of Italian art which characterized the time of the Renaissance properly so called. Na-
tural objects such as branches, foliage, and flowers, are rendered in a decorative manner and with gracefulness,
knowledge, and elegant variety.
Nos 13, 14.
ILLUMINATED HOURs attributed to Israel van Meckenen, Bibl. Nat.
Nos 1 to 10.
Book of Hours of the Marquis de Paulmy.
Library of the Arsenal. M. Sorb. 1173; Colbert collection, 4821.
Nos 15 to 18.
Nos 11 and 12. WARIOUS MANUSCRIPTS.
Manuscript belonging to the Comte de Bastard. Library of the Arsenal.





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RENAISSANCE.
PANELS, FRIEZES, AND BORDERS.
All the specimens of which this plate is composed are taken from the famous book a Heures d l’usage de Rouen,
imprime'es pour Symon Vostre, libraire demeurant d Paris, D the first edition of which bears the date 1508.
The early monuments of the French Renaissance generally exhibit traces Of their double origin. On one side they
bear the impress of the essentially northern art which prevailed in France in the middle ages, and on the other
they show the influence of the Italian style which was soon to carry all before it; here, however, the French style
preponderates, and the Italian influence can only be noticed in a few of the subjects, especially those in the lower
part of the plate.
Many of these simple subjects remind us Of the charming ornamentation on beams still so frequently to be seen in
Old buildings in Normandy, Picardy, and Champagne.
Our ability to give our readers a representation in colour Of this typographical work is only due to a trick which
was frequently practised in the earlier times of printing, before the invention had been generally made known. The
books of Symon Vostre, Vérard, and others, were frequently printed on vellum, and then painted like manuscripts, so as
to conceal their true origin, and make the purchaser believe that he was acquiring an original manuscript. The
copy, thus metamorphosed, of which we have made use, and the printing of which is entirely covered by colouring,
as represented in the plate, has on it the arms of Jehan de Clisson, and forms part of the library of M. Ambroise
Firmin Didot.





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RENAISSANCE.
PAINTINGS ON MANUSCRIPTS.
All the specimens of which this plate is composed are taken from the Gradual of the Cathedral of Sienna, the
ornamentation of which is by Girolamo da Cremona, one of the most fruitful artists of the close of the fifteenth cen-
tury. Vasari speaks of him in the following terms, at the end of his life of Boccacino : & In his time there livedt
at Milan a miniature painter named Girolamo, who produced works which are to be met with at Milan and through-
out Lombardy .
Girolamo da Cremona ranks among the best of miniature painters. His ornamentation is of a broad and powerful
character, quite distinct from that of his contemporaries; it is a decided return towards the antique, but without
detracting from the artist's originality. The ornamented ox's scull is interesting, and the monster with single
head and double body is of the highest Grecian antiquity; indeed the architect Paccard has made use of this type in
his restoration of the Parthenon.
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RENAISSANCE.
XVI CENTURY.
FRESCOES AND ARABESQUES OF RAPHAEL.
LOGGIE OF THE WATICAN.
Everything that it is possible to say has already been said of these marvels of decoration, which are at the same
time marvels of ideal art. In giving a place in our collection to a few of these beautiful frescoes, executed, as is well
known, under the direction of Raphael, by his principal pupils, we do not exceed the limits of our subject, but merely
extend those limits by giving an example of the highest expression of which it is capable. These great works are more
than mere decorations, but yet they are decorations, sometimes connected by unity of subject, sometimes abando-
ned, apparently, to the caprices of a charming fancy, but always subordinated to the general effect, and meeting in
every respect the requirements of decorative art.
In the plate two large subjects occupy the right and left. The former represents the Four Seasons, with their at-
tributes expressed as clearly as poetically. The latter shows the Three Fates, grand figures spinning between them
the thread of human life.
The centre of the plate is filled with various examples from the same sources.





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XVI CENTURY.
DECORATIVE PAINTINGS IN THE WATICAN. *
GROTESQUES.
& It is thought, says M. Daussy, a that this expression was first applied to the imitations that were made of
the figures of imaginary animals found in the fifteenth century in the subterraneous constructions, which the
Italians term grotte. Grotesques result from the love of the marvellous, that imperious need of our nature to
leave at times the human sphere and to soar away into the fairy land of imagination; this need is universal, it is
born with man as much as poetry or thought, but it is developed most strongly in those nations in which the
elements of civilisation are heterogeneous and produced by different causes.
& Rome naturally adopted the style which Raphael allegorized. ”
(Histoire des Beaux-Arts, by Jacques Mérault-Daussy, 1849.)
All the fragments in the accompanying plate are from paintings by Raphael, except the trophy in the centre,
which is by the hand of Giulio Clovio, and is taken from a manuscript in the Library of the Arsenal (H. F. N° 71,
Réserve), and the two cameos in gold on a blue ground to the right and left of the example on a black ground
in the lower part of the plate, which are from the Casa Taverna at Milan.





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RENAISSANCE.
XVI CENTURY (FIRST PERIOD).
*
MINIATURES TAKEN FROM MANUSCRIPTS.
Of the five fragments contained in this plate the two first (N" 1 and 2) decorate the frontispiece of a manu-
script belonging to the Library of the Arsenal, Paris, entitled : Historia romana excerpta ex libris historicis Pauli
Orosii (H. F. N° 71, Reserve).
These wonderful miniatures are by the Italian Giulio Clovio, a pupil of Raphael, whose great success is related
by Vasari.
The characteristics of the Italian style, and especially of the school of Fontainebleau, may be seen in the other
three fragments (N" 3, 4 and 5), which are taken from a manuscript of Flavius Josephus in the Mazarin Library
(Manuscripts, N° 518, H.).







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Nos 14, 15.
- - - - Nos 20, 21, 22, 23, 24.
Miniatures from the missal of Cardinal Cornari, attributed to Raphael. * ~ * > --> *-* *
Nos 16, 17, 18, 19. - - - - -
', ' ', 18, Horarum preces cum kalendario, Monasterii Terinent dated 1554, in
Lives of the Dukes of Urbino; (Vatican Library, at Rome.) the possession of M. Amb. Firmin Didot.


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XIV CENTURY.
FIRST PERIOD.
CART OU CHES.
The cartouche is especially an ornament of sculpture. The numerous modifications it has undergone should en-
gage the attention of every artist. Adapting itself in its earlier stages to wood and leather work, cut and rolled
in a thousand fashions, it afterwards appears in branches twisted like the letter S, and in the rock-work of the
eighteenth century, resulting at last in the elegant forms of the Louis XVI period. The shield of the middle ages,
surmounted by the helmet, with the scallop in various forms, was certainly the origin of it; but it was not until
the fifteenth century that the Italians paid it the attention it deserved. This product of the architectural genius of
European artists has nothing in common with the Oriental or Asiatic style; it settles the attention, and fixes in-
terest by dividing it among the complicated patterns of which it is the principal motive, the other means of
ornamentation being grouped around it in subordination.
Irrespective of numerous detached examples of cartouches, we give a sort of history of this style of composi-
tion in six plates which are placed in chronological order. We believe that this is now done for the first time.
No 1.
XW CENTURY.
Example taken from a painting by Cima da Conegliano. (Louvre.)
Nos 2 to 5.
xVI CENTURY, 1* PER1OD.
Design by Antonio Razzi. (Louvre.)
No 6.
Manuscript. (Library of the Arsenal, N° 328.)
Nos 7 to 11.
Enamelled terra-cotta in relief, Italian style. (Exterior decoration of
the castle called the Château de Madrid, built by Francis I.)
Nos 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21.
Paintings of Primaticcio at Fontainebleau.
Nos 26, 27, 28.
Fragments of the ornamental borders of portraits, taken from a mag-
nificent manuscript executed for Francis I, about 1530. (Bibl. Nat.
French section, Réserve, N° 2848.)
No 29.
Taken from a window in the ossuary of Saint-Étienne du Mont;
French Renaissance, 1535.
This cartouche is one of the few relics of the Parisian Renais-
sance. It contained the arms of the donors of the windows, which
were broken at the time of the Reformation; we have filled up
the space they would have occupied by a contemporary arabesque.
No 30.
Taken from a window with the arms of the corporation of goldsmiths
of Rouen, dated 1543.
Nos 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 25, 31 to 35.
Ornaments on manuscripts, from Geoffroy Tory, Cousin, etc.; time of
Henry II.





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RENAISSANCE.
ORNAMENTATION OF LIMOGES ENAMELS,
AND OF
ITALIAN EARTHENWARE .







Painted enamel was brought into fashion by the old Limousin school about 1520, and attained its greatest
perfection about 1540. Il Rosso and Primaticcio painted cartoons for the Limousin enamellers, and thus assisted
in the creation of this new species of jewellery.
Léonard, painter to Francis I, was the first superintendent of the Royal Manufactory of Enamel founded at
Limoges by that King, and, on that account is frequently called Léonard Limousin. After him came Pierre
Raymond, whose productions date from 1534 to 1578, the Penicauds, Pierre and Jean Courteys, Martial
Raymond, Mercier, and Jean Court, usually called Vigier. (See M. Labarte, Histoire des arts industriels, and the
annals of the studios given by M. Alfred Darcel in the Notice des émaua; et de l’or/évrerie, série D, which is sold
in the Louvre, Galerie d’Apollon.)
The fragments of ornamentation which we have collected are principally by Androuet du Cerceau, Jean Cousin,
Pierre Woeiriot, and above all by Etienne de Laune, usually called Stephanus, who, as M. Paul Lacroix remarks
(Histoirc de l'or/évrerie-joaillerie), a had introduced, even in the greatest height of the Italian fever, a brilliant
return to the schools of Jean Collaert of Antwerp, and of Theodore de Bry of Frankfort. »


This class of manufacture, the productions of which are now so costly, became very much depreciated towards
the close of the sixteenth century, as we may see from l'Art de terre by Bernard Palissy. This eminent artist
speaks of and deplores this decline of public taste; for, in his opinion, a no painting is so pleasing as these enamels
well fused into the copper. " From this time forward enamellers began to make excessive use of spangles and
gaudy colours, which were only employed in moderation by the founders of the school.
The specimens taken from the enamel manufactory at Limoges occupy N* 1 to 16 in our plate.
No. 1, 2, 3. No 9.
Enamels, by Martin Limousin. Border from the same.
No. 10, 11, 12, 13.
No. 4, 5, 6.
- Borders by Pierre Courteys.
From the studio of Léonard Limousin.
No 14.
No 7 Border and deepened edge attributed to Jean Courteys.
- - No 15.
From the studio of Pierre Raymond.
Border by Jehan Court, called Vigier.
No 8. No 16.
Reverse of a tray, with the centre perforated, from the same. By the same.
All these specimens are taken from the Louvre.
N" 17 to 40 represent fragments of Italian earthenware.
We cannot follow through all their varieties the productions of the manufactories at Pesaro, Gubbio, Urbino,
Faenza, Rimini, Forli, Bologna, Ravenna, Ferrara, Civita-Castellana, Bassano, and Venice, by which the entire
collection of Italian pottery was produced; the story of their competition with one another is extremely interest-
ing. Although we give a few specimens of maiolica ware, we have not attempted the perfectly vain task of ren-
dering exactly their beautiful metallic tints streaked with all the colours of the rainbow. We think, however, that
it may be useful to represent some specimens of these decorations, the composition of which is frequently inge-
nious and always clear, whether they be derived from an oriental type or from Greek antiquity. Lanfranco,
Giorgio Andreoli, Francesco, Xanto, Orazio Fontana, Guido Salvaggio, Flaminio Fontana, Battista Franco, and
Raphael dal Colle are the principal authors of these works, although the first impulse was given to them
by Luca della Robbia in the fifteenth century, and they were spread through Europe by the three brothers
Giovanni, settled at Corfu, and by Guido of Savino, who took up his residence at Antwerp.
Some of these specimens are of such magnificence and beauty, that Christina of Sweden offered to exchange
for them silver plate of the same size.
Nos 17 to 23. Nos 26 to 29.
Dishes and borders of maiolica. Camaieux.
Nos 30 to 40.
No. 24, 25. Fragments in the grotesque style from the manufactories of Urbino.
Enamelled borders. Taken from the Museum of the Louvre and from private collections.


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RENAISSANCE.
ENAMELLED TILES.
4. 6
1
5 7
13 14.
3
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2 5
- 11
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12
Æ 17 18
No 1.
Pentagonal tiles forming a pattern, from the collection of the
Comte d'Yvon.
Nos 2, 3.
Pentagonal tiles; the border, which is not given, is like that of No 1;
from the same collection.
Nos 4 to 8.
Tiles, the borders of all of which are the same as that of N° 8; same
collection.
Nos 9 to 14.
Inlaid pavements, from the Château de Polisy (Aube).
Nos 15 to 18.
Single tiles: from the same.


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XVI AND XVII CENTURIES.
GOLD ENAMELLING AND JEWELLERY.
a Benvenuto Cellini, in his treatise on goldsmith's work, enters into minute technical and practical details on
goldsmith's work in general, which he divides into eight distinct kinds : jewellery, niello, filigree work, chasing,
intaglio, enamel, iron work, and the striking of medals and seals. In his opinion filigree, enamel, and iron
work belong especially to the province of the French goldsmith. ”
(Histoire de l'orfévrerie-joaillerie, by Paul Lacroix.)
The art of the goldsmith enameller is now lost; it began to decline from the time when Louis XIV had his plate
melted down into coin in 1688; the use of porcelain and glass hastened its end. Henceforward it was only used
for curiosities intended for presents, for which in 1698 the king still retained in the Louvre four goldsmiths : Mel-
lin, Rotier, Delaunay, and Montarsy, and an enameller named Bain, & almost the only one in France at the present
time, who has a thorough knowledge of transparent enamel, says Germain Brice in his Description of Paris.
Nos 1 and 2. | No 15.
Chape of the scabbard of a sword, front and back. Mounting of a cameo on an ebony box.
No 3. Nos 16, 17.
Ring of an oliphant, unfolded. Fragments of the same box from the ancient treasury of the kings
No 4 of Poland, belonging to the Czartoryski family.
Fragment from an agate vase. MUSEUM OF THE LOUVRE.
Nos 5, 6, 7, 9, 12. No 18.
Fragments from a golden goblet. Base of a vase mounted on a tripod.
No. 8, 10, 14. Nos 19 to 26.
Setting of a clasp. Handles of vases and goblets.
- No 1 1. Nos 27 and 28.
Ring. Stands for goblets.
No 13. Nos 29 to 31.
End of a sword-hilt, from the treasury of the House of Austria. Various fragments.





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RENAISSANGE.
PAINTINGS ON MANUSCRIPTS.
The two superimposed subjects occupying the centre of the plate are of Italian origin and taken from the
famous Gradual of Sienna.
All the others belong to the French Renaissance (School of Tours); they are of importance from their own merits
as well as from the name of their author, François Colomb.
Michel Colomb or Columb, who built the sumptuous tomb, consecrated by the filial piety of Anne of Brittany to
the memory of Francis II, last Duke of Brittany, and his wife Marguerite de Foix, was one of the most fertile of
French artists. He died at the commencement of the sixteenth century.
We find in the old archives of Flanders, that Colomb was assisted by three nephews, & all perfect workmen,
one in the carving of images, another in masonry, and the third in the art of illumination. The image carver was
named Guillaume Regnault; the architect, Bastyen François; the illuminator, François Colomb. Colomb
himself prepared the models in terra cotta »; Bastyen François was entrusted with the architectural part of the
monument; and afterwards François Colomb decorated the models with painting according as the colour of the
material required, a flesh-tints for face and hands, inscriptions, and every thing else belonging thereto. (See
Nantes, by the Baron de Guillermy; Annales archéologiques de Didron, 1845.)
This account gives great interest to the adjoined specimens, which are taken from a manuscript in the
Bibliothèque Nationale, Latin Section N°886; in them may be recognized all the features noticed in the above descrip-
tion, and the peculiar taste and style of the Colombs.


*
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#
RENAISSANCE.
CEILING WITH GILDED COMPARTMENTS.
The oak ceiling with carved and gilded compartments represented in the plate, is that of the large hall of the
Parliament of Normandy (now the Court of Assizes), which is to be seen in the Palais de Justice at Rouen.
The special books written on this building tell us neither the designer of this beautiful ceiling, nor the precise
date that may be assigned to it. We may however consider it as contemporaneous with the rest of the palace,
since this building, commenced by Louis XII and the Cardinal d'Amboise about 1499, – the time at which the
Norman Court of Exchequer was rendered permanent, — was considered almost complete in 1514. The general style
of the decoration, also, would seem to belong to the same period, i. e. the beginning of the sixteenth century or the
commencement of the Renaissance.
We do not think that this work of art, so well known and so generally admired, has ever before been re-
produced in a complete manner, and especially with colouring; we are therefore happy to be able to present it to
our readers.
In the present state of the original, the oak wood which forms the ground, has become almost black; it was
thought best to give it as far as possible its original colour.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE SUBJECT.
ACH. DEVILLE. Précis analytique des travaux de l'Académie de Rouen; JoLIMONT; Les principaux édifices de la ville de Rouen en 1525; Rouen,
1840. 1845.
FLOQUET. Histoire du Parlement; Frère, 1840. DE STABENRATH. Notice sur le Palais de Justice de Rouen. Edet, 1843.


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RENAISSANCE.
XVI CENTURY.
DECORATIVE PAINTING AND SCULPTURE.
FROM FRENCH MONUMENTS.
If there is one period more interesting than another in the history of French national art, it is certainly that,
in which French artists, under the foreign influence which was beginning to predominate, added the spirit of
Italian art to their own natural taste.
In the present day justice is rendered to this national school, which had been wonderfully prepared by its solid
studies and strong originality for the lessons of ancient art at that time so enthusiastically received.
“From 1460,” says Jeanron (Recherches sur l'origine et les progrés de l'art), “our artists began to show at once an original style, peculiar taste, and
( deep appreciation of the models of antiquity. Their personal inspiration and free interpretation assigned them a high rank in the movement
‘ called the Renaissance.... We will not allow it to be said, on the faith of literary exaggerations, that the Italian artists summoned to the court of
“Francis I, taught their art to low and ignorant French artists. The rapid way, in which our national school appropriated the Italian manne
a proves, on the contrary, its advancement and strength. ”
The examples in our plate are derived from the following sources:
Nos 1, 2, 3. Nos 16 to 19.
Stone sculptures; château de Blois, 1530. Wood carving; château de Blois (oratory of Catherine de Médicis), 1560.
Nos 4 to 7. Nos 20 to 24.
Stone sculptures; château de Châteaudun, 1530. Painting on manuscripts derived from :
Nos 8 to 15. 1° The Bible of the Arsenal;
Wood carving; château de Blois, 1530. 29 Book of Hours of the Schoenborn family. M. de Rothschild.
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Q
RENAISSANCE.
BINDINGS, AND WENETIAN MARQUETRY.
No 1.
Specimen of binding, the centre of which is occupied by an oil painting, here merely sketched in outline.
No 2.
Specimen of binding, with the inside border.
These two fine specimens are from the library of M. Ambroise Firmin Didot.
No 3.
Three specimens of marquetry from a harpsichord of the sixteenth century (Cluny Museum).
In all these specimens the designs are essentially Persian, and they form a fitting sequel to our examples of
Oriental ornamentation. Our object in placing them under the title Renaissance has been to show the part that
Venice, through its constant relations with the Levant, took in the introduction of the arabesque, which ornament,
since the sixteenth century, has been so happily blended with the Greco-Roman tradition.





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#
XVI AND XVII CENTURIES.
SPECIMIENS OF INLAID BINDINGS.
One of the most interesting branches of ornamental art is undoubtedly that of the binder.
The taste for hand-
some bindings, a natural accompaniment to the passion for fine books and rare editions, has from the earliest
time caused the production of masterpieces, which we think it well to bring before the notice of our readers.
For this plate we have chosen models which, by the combined use of colours and gold, come especially within
the limits of our subject. The following are the sources from which they have been obtained :
No 1.
A copy of PRocoPIUs, De Bello Persico, 4”, 1509.
This handsome Italian binding was made for Maioli the celebrated
collector of books, and bears this inscription : Th. Maioli et amicorum.
Library of M. Ambroise Firmin Didot.
No 2.
A copy of THE EDITION of PAUL Jovius, folio, Florence, 1549.
This copy comes from the well-known library of Grolier and bears
the inscription : Grollerii et amicorum.
Library of M. Ambroise Firmin Didot.
No 3.
A copy of THE BIBLE of R. STEPHANUs, folio, Paris, 1540.
“The binding was executed for the President de Thou and appears
to have formed a part of his library. ”
Library of M. Ambroise Firmin Didot.
No 4.
CoMMENTARY ON THE PENTATEUch, 4".
Bibliothèque Nationale (Saint-Germain français, 4).
No 5.
CoRNER of The cover of A Book with The ARMS OF HENRY 11 AND THE
INITIALS OF DIANA of PolTIERS.
Mazarin Library.
No 6.
ANOTHER SPECIMEN WITH THE ARMS OF HENRY II AND THE INITIALS OF DIANA
of PoitieRs.
This work bears as its title : Fl. Vegetii, Renati viri, et.....
Mazarin Library.
No 7.
BIBLIA ea duplici versione altera Vulgata, altera Tigurina Leonis de
Juda, cum annotationibus Fr. Vatabli. Lutetiae, ea officina Rob. Ste-
phani, 1545, 2 vols. 8", red morocco, inlaid, gilt edges.
This binding is thus described in the catalogue of the sale of M. Bru-
net's books, under number 2:
“A rich and elegant binding of the sixteenth century with inlaid com-
partments, as remarkable fro its good preservation as for its beauty.


“This copy is the one offered by Jean Grolier to the president Christophe
de Thou, and at his death it passed to his son Jacques-Auguste de Thou, the
well known historian. In 1789, it formed part of the collection of the Prince
de Soubise, to which, as is well known, that of J. A. de Thou had been uni-
ted. Le Roux de Lincy alludes to it in p. 93 of his work on Grolier, but he did
not know what had become of the book; I obtained it at the sale that took place
after the death of Renouard but without knowing its history, which the work
of M. de Lincy has recently revealed to me. This magnificent binding is still
in the most perfect preservation, and very different in that respect from the
Hippocrates of the Motteley collection, of which the back was restored in the
eighteenth century and the sides only imperfectly repaired.”
(Note of M. Brunet.)
No 8.
IIEUREs DE LA WIERGE, 8”. Paris, Guillaume Merlin. 1555.
Library of M. Ambroise Firmin Didot.
Q
No 9.
BACK OF A voluME witH THE ARMS OF HENRY II.
Mazarin Library.
No 10.
RoMAN Missal, folio, Venetiis, Ant. de Zanchis, 1506.
The binding is Italian and of a later period, having been executed
at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Collection of M. Bachelin-Deflorenne.
No 1 1.
GRANDES ANNALEs ET CHRONIQUEs D'ANGLETERRE, by Jean Besnard, for-
merly secretary of the queen of England (completed March 22" 1567,
and dedicated to the king of France, Charles IX, by the author).
It is the fore-edge of the volume that is given in our plate.
Bibl. Nat. (French manuscripts n° 5575.)


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\
XVI CENTURY.
PAINTINGS ON MANUSCRIPTS, AND DAMASKEENINGS.
The first seven numbers represent paintings from a manuscript executed for Henry II (Confirmation des priviléges
des notaires et secrétaires par Louis XI). It is one of the finest specimens of the ornamentation of that period. The
resemblance of these paintings to undoubted works of Jean Cousin leaves us scarcely any room for doubt in at-
tributing them to that artist.
The volume forms part of the library of M. Ambroise Firmin Didot.
The specimens marked 8 and 9 are by Androuet du Cerceau and are of the same class as the old paintings at
Fontainebleau.
N" 10 to 15 represent designs of damaskeening taken from the masterpieces of the Lyons press. These also are
in the library of M. Ambroise Firmin Didot.





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XVI CENTURY.
CARTOUCHES ON FRIEZES, SCROLLS, AND ORNAMENTAL NAILS.
This plate contains forty-four examples. That with a green ground, on which the initials of Henry and Ca-
therine are to be seen, is taken from the decoration of the beams in the oratory of Catherine de Medici in the
Château de Chenonceaux.
The pendentive on a yellow ground, placed under the preceding subject at the lower part of the plate, is
taken from a fresco painting in the Chapel of the same castle.
The forty two remaining subjects, which are likewise unnumbered, come from the historical gallery of Thevet,
entitled : Les Wrais portraits et vies des hommes illustres, grecs, latins et payens, recueillis de leurs portraits, livres,
médalles, antiques et modernes, Paris, 1584.
This valuable collection of full-length portraits, engraved on copper towards the close of the sixteenth century, is
particularly rich in architectural decorations of a unique type, the details of which vary in every page. To accom-
plish this immense work it was necessary to use almost every suitable specimen in existence. Some idea of its
extent may be formed from the rich collection contained in the accompanying plate, selected from a copy which
was coloured at the time of its publication.





XV"WII SIECLE (
imp Lemercier & C". Paris





XVI ANI) XVII CENTURIES (FIRst PERIOD).
CARTOUCHES.
It is interesting to follow the development of the cartouche through the various phases of French national art.
The examples given here belong to the second part of sixteenth century and to the first part of the following one.
Numbers 1 to 4 are taken from a manuscript in the Library of the Arsenal, attributed to Jean Cousin.
The rest are, for the most part, of Flemish origin and come from different sources. They are mostly ornaments of
maps, but are capable of different applications, especially in the common use of wood and leather as materials for
ornamentation.


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4.
XVI AND XVII CENTURIES.
EMBROIDERED HANGINGS.
The examples given in our plate have been obtained from two different sources.
Nos 1 and 2.
Collection of M. Bouvier, painter.
In these two fragments, brought from Genoa, the embroidery is of cloth on a ground of the same material,
and the borders alone are of silk.
No 3.
Collection of M. Leclercq, dealer in curiosities, Paris.
In the third example, the ground is of silk figured with violet on violet (Lyons style) and the embroideries are
in yellow satin. It is from Milan.
The designs, which are of great firmness, are remarkable for their powerful relief, which would almost render
them fit subjects for ornamental sculpture. They are worthy of the best masters of the time.





XVIIth CENTURY XVII" SECLE XVI's JAHRHUNDERT
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XVII CENTURY.
PAINTINGS, CARWINGS, AND OPEN WORK.
The various fragments collected in this plate all belong to the same period, and to the style usually called after
Louis XIII, as is shown by the source from which N° 7 is drawn.
No 1.
Fragment of wood inlaid with carved ivory and mother of pearl, the
size of the original, belonging to the Comte d'Yvon, and dated 1598.
This carving, of which it is not easy to guess the use, is extremely
delicate and intricate, and was probably executed to procure admis-
sion to a guild.
Nos 2, 3.
Silver frames, pierced and chased, of the size of the original, dating
from the beginning of the century; communicated by M. Mayor.
No 4.
A frieze from the pavilion of the two Queen-Mothers at Fontainebleau.
Time of Louis XIII.
No 5.
Cipher of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. (From the same.)
No 6.
Upper part of the left wing of the gilded door at Fontainebleau, before
restoration.
No 7.
Casket of Anne of Austria, in chased gold, on a velvet ground. (Louvre.)





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XVII CENTURY.
FIRST PERIOD (STYLE LOUIS XIII).
PANEL OF GILT LEATHER \VITH BORDER.
The accompanying plate represents one of the finest specimens of the manufacture of ornamental leather, (stamped
with patterns in gold and silver,) which flourished in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The name Cordo-
van Iealher, frequently given to these productions, would seem to indicate a Spanish origin, though it is far from
being proved. It was from Venice, where the idea originated in the imitation of the rich brocades from the East,
and also from England, Holland, and Flanders (particularly Illalines) that these rich hangings were brought. Some
manufactories of them also existed at Lyons.
These leathers, made from calf, goat or sheep skin, treated like ordinary sheep-skin after having been in the
tan , and having drawings or paintings stamped upon them, were always silvered before gilding, which latter
process was effected by a varnish imitating gold.
These hangings justly enjoyed great favour as they were very durable, being imperviOUs to damp and other
causes of decay, and the effort made by modern trade to bring them once more into fashion is worthy of encou-
ragement.
The one represented in our plate is in the Cluny Museum (N’ 1715 in the Catalogue).





XVIIth CENTURY XVI. SIEG, LF, XVII" JAHRHUNDERT
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XVII CENTURY (FIRST PERIOD).
MURAL PAINTINGS, MINIATURES, ENAMELS, AND ENGRAVINGS IN NIELL0.
2
4 5
7 8
6
ji 12
9 || 1 5 [10
15
14
No 1. Nos 4, 5.
Panel from the pavilion of the Queen-Mothers at Fontainebleau. Miniatures taken from a manuscript executed for Anne of Austria.
Mazarin Library.
No 2. Nos 6 to 12.
Panel of the painted ceiling in the apartment of Anne of Austria in Decorative paintings of the architecture of Saint-Eustache, published
the Palace of the Louvre. by A. Lenoir. (Statistique monumentale de Paris.)
No 3. - Nos 13, 14.
Panel copied from the Luxembourg Palace. Fragments of gold enamel and of engravings in niello.
––s-O-GO-43-9-–





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£
XVII CENTURY (FIRST PART).
CARTOUCHES, CONFINED AND FREE.
N" 1, 2, 3, 4 come from the panels and roof of the Chapelle d’Hinisdal of the bare-footed Carmelites, after
A. Lenoir (Statistique monumentale de Paris). These fragments belong to the first half of the century.
The separate cartouches are all taken from ornaments on maps, many of which date as far back as 1645. They
were engraved in Flanders, and the colouring is merely tinsel.
N" 5 and 6 are taken from Bernardus Castellus.
The masks and intercalated branches are also of Flemish origin, belong to the same period, and are taken from
Jean Christophe Feinlin.


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XVII CENTURY.
FIRST PERIOD.
HANGINGS, EMBROIDERY, AND DAMASKEENING.
In this plate a certain number of subjects have been collected, derived from various sources and of different uses
but to some extent similar in character. The examples have been obtained as follows.
No 1.
LEATHER HANGINGs, from the Château de Cheverny, near Blois (1635).
No 2.
WooDEN FRAME, INLAID witH METAL, from Touraine (same period).
Nos 3 to 8.
DAMASKEENING of THE FLEMISH STYLE, after Jean Christophe Feinlin.


All the other specimens are German embroideries, the designs on which have a sufficiently striking resemblance
to those published by Hans Friedrich Raidel at Ulm (in 1613) to warrant us in attributing them to that artist.
The necessity of greatly reducing these interesting specimens has compelled us, in order to preserve their clearness,
to change the deep grounds on which the embroidery was often laid for lighter ones. The high relief of these or-
naments is shown to great advantage on white silk, and on red, crimson, or dark green velvet, as may be seen in
the Cluny Museum. (Salle des tentures et étoffes, first case to the left on entering.)


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XVII CENTURY.
MOSAIC, AND PAINTINGS.
No 1.
Fragment of a ceiling at Versailles painted by Mignard; now destroyed.
No 2.
Fragment of grand staircase at Versailles, by Lebrun; destroyed.
No 3.
Fragment of grand gallery at Versailles, by Lebrun.
No 4.
Design for the top of a table in marble mosaic, attributed to Robert de Cotte (Bibl. Nat., Cabinet des Estampes).
The four painted borders are from a house in the Rue de Beaune, and from the drawing-room, the ceiling of which
is represented in plate *@* ; the decorations may be attributed to Daniel Marot.





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XVII AND XVIII CENTURIES.
EARTHENWARE.
FRENCH MANUFACTURE.
The accompanying plate contains a certain number of specimens of French earthenware. They may be thus
classed :
Nos 1 to 14.
ROUEN EARTHENWARE.
It was only about the middle of the sevententh century that the first manufactories of earthenware were established
at Rouen, under the protection of Colbert. His patronage procured for them the privilege of working for the king,
rom the designs of the best artists of the period. Those of our readers who are curious to learn the history and
vicissitudes of this remarkable art may consult with profit the interesting monograph entitled, Histoire de la
Faience de Rouen, a posthumous work of M. André Pottier, keeper of the Public Library and Keramic Museum at
Rouen, published under the care of the Abbé Collas, and of Mess" Gustave Gouellain and Raymond Bordeaux,
First part, Rouen, 1869.
The specimens that we have chosen, as belonging to the best periods of the manufacture, are nearly all to be
ound in the Cluny Museum.
No 15. Nos 16 and 17.
MANUFACTURE witH THE MONOGRAM of FEBURIER BORNE, potter at Lille
in 1716. (See Faiences et Porcelaines, by Auguste Demmin, 1861.) MoUSTIERS EARTHENWARE.


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XVII CENTURY.
SECOND PERIOD.
TAPESTRIES AND BORDERS.
The principal subject in the accompanying plate, with its border (N°' 1 and 2), is taken from a most beauti-
fully designed piece of tapestry in the Ch-Iteau de Grignan.
Numbers 3 and 4 belong, to judge from the style and costumes, to a period nearer to the eighteenth century.
The one which contains the two shepherdesses, designed after the fashion then prevalent, belongs to a series re-
presenting the twelve months of the year, in which it takes the place of June, characterised by the sheep-shear-
ing and the sign of Cancer, the small size of which in the original does not allow of its being represented in
the reduced proportions of our plate.
Between these last fragments and the tapestry of the Chaiteau de Grignan a difference of execution exists which
is worthy Of being noted. In the latter the colouring is flat; in the others the outline of the ornament is determine-
by lighter tints on a dark background, and by darker ones on a light ground; the latter system being most fred
quently adopted in the designs for prints and chintzes.


1'7


*:
XVII AND XVIII CENTURIES.
INLAID WORK — BOULLE.
The genre Boulle, one of those manufactures which have conferred the greatest honour on France, has now
regained the favour it enjoyed at the close of the seventeenth and commencement of the eighteenth centuries.
André Charles Boulle (born in 1642, died aged 90 in 1732) applied to cabinet-work all the faculties of a true
artist. Appointed first cabinet-maker to the king by a patent which gave him the triple title of architect, sculptor, and
engraver; he was lodged in the Louvre, and made one of the richest collections then known, of drawings, en-
gravings, and works of art, a part of which was unhappily destroyed by fire, and the rest sold at the instance
of creditors. The possession of such valuable materials explains, in part, the perfection of the original works
which came from the master's hand. Boulle founded a school and gave his name to the genre, which was after-
wards continued by Caffieri and Crescent, and is still successfully imitated.
This kind of art, which is not merely distinguished by the beauty and richness of its designs, but also for the
happy combination of woods of various colours or of different metals, belongs essentially to polychromatic de-
coration.
The specimens given in our plate come from four different sources.
Nos 1 to 5.
UPRIGHT CLOCK, with copper ground and tortoise-shell ornaments.
In this piece the silvery effect shown the copper ground, as on in our
plate, is obtained by means of a particular varnish, spread over the copper,
which gives tints of silver and mother of pearl.
Mazarin Library.
Nos 6 to 10,
CABINETS IN MARQUETRY, tortoise-shell ground with ornaments of en-
graved copper.
Mazarin Library.
Nos 10 to 14.
GENERAL view AND DETAILs of A very FINE Louis XIV piece of furni-
ture, of great size, in ebony with copper ornaments representing as
the principal subject, a Hercules overthrowing the Hydra of Lerna ".
This piece of furniture forms a part of the collection of M. Mann-
heim, to whose kindness we are indebted for our illustration.
Nos 15 to 17.
VARIOUs specIMENs of oRNAMENTATION in marquetry.
****





"SEC C.
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XV; th CENTURY
lmp Th Dupuy Paris
FIRMINDIDOT FRERE's EILs & Cie EDITEURs.
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XVII AND XVIII CENTURIES.
GILDED LEATHER AND BORDERS.
We have already given some explanation as to the origin and manufacture of these stamped leathers, with orna-
ments printed in gold and colours. (See pl. 5 .)
Here the great variety of tints and the use of more delicate colours than those employed in the Louis XIII style
characterise the more coquettish and mannered, but at the same time intelligent period of art with which the
eighteenth century opened.
The beauty of the ornaments will astonish no one, if it be borne in mind that for this most costly luxury the
designs were usually obtained from the best decorative artists of the time, such as Oppenord, and the Meisson-
niers.
N" I and 2.
Cluny Museum.
No, 3 m 7. COLLECTION or M. Racarrs.
COLLECTION or M. Lecuzuco, dealer in curiosities, Paris.








=&\
XVIII CENTURY.
TAPESTRIES.
These six specimens of tapestry form a continuation to plate W and are selected from the work of Robert de Cotte
(Bibl. Nat., Cabinet des estampes).
We have nothing in particular to notice concerning them, except that it seems to us that the four examples in the
lower part of the plate cannot be attributed to the same hand as the other two, which are by the author of the mag-
nificent tapestry represented in the plate we have just spoken of.
With this reservation, they may all be attributed to the same school, which is characterised by a degree of archi-
tectural arrangement and an imposing richness of ornamentation.











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XVIII CENTURY.
DECORATIVE PAINTING.
This plate is composed of fragments, the varied repetitions of which form nearly the entire decoration of a
harpsichord manufactured in the first part of the eighteenth century.
This magnificent piece of furniture is in the Cluny Museum. The ornaments are painted on gilded wood; and
the fantastic design, which characterises it, is in the favourite style of Gillot, and Watteau.
The two fragments in the upper part unite .at the green upright, where one finishes and the other commences
the bower forms the centre of the design, and the other groups are repeated on each side, variations of the figures
and of the garlands of flowers completing the frieze.
The lower part of the plate represents the decoration of the front of the harpsichord.








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XVIII CENTURY.
CARTOUCHES.
This plate terminates the series representing the different phases of the cartouche, the general characteristics
of which we have already defined.
No I.
Is from a service-book painted at Paris in 1740 for the church of
St Gervais; it forms the framework of a blue camaieu. (Mazarin Library.
MS. 238 T.)
Nos 2, 3.
These specimens are by Bernard Picart and also serve as frames to
camaieux.
The above three specimens, as well as N* 12 and 13, belong to the
style of the close of the seventeenth century.
Nos 4 to 7.
These subjects belong to a more equivocal style, viz to that ex-
cessive use of curves, which during a part of the century almost led to
the abandonment of the straight line as an element of ornamentation.
No 8.
Stand in enamelled and painted earthenware.
No 9.
Book-plate painted in 1752 by Elias Nilson, director of the Academy
of Augsburg, usually called the great Nilson.
Nos 10, 11.
Emblematic cartouches, after De la Joue.
The four masks are by Abraham Bosse, and belong to the preceding
century.
Nos 2, 3, 8.
Specimens of damaskeening from 1720 to 1730.


XVIII CENTURY.
GOLDSMITHS WORK, AND JEWELLERY.
Some of the clasps, called châtelaines, with which this plate is filled, belong to the style which was in fashion from
1719 to 1745; a style encouraged by the Oppenords and Meissonier, and carried to such a length by Babel, the cele-
brated goldsmith; the others belong to a later time.
In jewellery and the arts that depend on it, especially chasing, works were produced at this time which have not
since been surpassed. The French school, by adopting the liberty of form which prevailed in the new Italian style,
succeeded in giving it a peculiar character of lightness and grace.
Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11. Nos 12 t0 19.
Chains by Gilles l'Égaré.
These belong to the style of decoration practised by the Bérains and
Marots at the close of the seventeenth century and the commence-
ment of the eighteenth.
An almost complete set of ladies' ornaments of the time of Louis XVI:
principal clasp with watch and seals, clasps, pins and egrets of
different dimensions for the dress and hair.
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No 9. Each of the other clasps represents the type of as many sets, composed
Seal by Gilles l'Egaré. (Same style.) of similar pieces, either for gentlemen or ladies.





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SNUFF Box.E.S.
1780 to 1790.
Collection of M. Leclercq, dealer in curiosities, Paris.
These enamelled gold boxes are ornamented with paintings in camateu.
i.
Nos 14, 12, 13, 14.
BoRDERS AFTER DENEUFFORGE.
It is interesting to observe with the dates the changes in French taste during the latter half of the eighteenth
century, changes which were in a great degree caused by the discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum, so well suited
to lead back to better principles the always ingenious but sometimes affected and involved manner of French artists.


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XVIII CENTURY.
PAINTINGS ON PORCELAIN.
It was only in 1769, and after many failures, that the chemist Macquer, of Sèvres, was able to read to the Academy
a complete memoir on hard French porcelain, and to exhibit some perfect specimens of it. Afterwards this manufac-
ture was greatly developed under the management of Brongniart. The rage for translucid paintings thus obtained
caused the production of an incalculable number, the principal types of which are given in our plate. They were
named after the great personages for whom they were designed, and are known as the Porcelain of the Queen, of
the Comte de Provence, of the Comte d'Artois, of the Duc d'Orléans, etc.
All these specimens are from the admirable collection of M. Léopold Double.
No 1.
Plate forming part of a service, called the “Birds of Buffon, w which Ornamental corners of trays.
the illustrious author of the Natural History called his Sévres edition, -
and which contains no fewer than 100 pieces, representing all the
birds described in the book.
Nos 10, i.
Nos 12, 13.
Nos 2 to 5.
Ground-work of trays.
N°5 has the initials of Mme Dubarry.
Nos 6 to 9. Nos 14 to 16.
Specimens of different services. Open-worked borders of trays.











CLASSIFIED INDEX OF THE SUBJECTS CONTAINED
IN THE PLATES.
WOWEN FABRICS.
Stuffs, Tapestries, Embroideries, and Printed Cloth.
£RIMITIVE; Plate I. Chinese and Japanese; Plates XIII., XIV., and XV. Indian; Plates XVIII. and
- XIX. Persian; Plates XX., XXIII., and XXV. Byzantine; Plate XXXV. Middle Ages; Plates
XLI. and XLVII. Renaissance; Plate LXXIII. Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; Plates
LXXVIII., LXXXIII., LXXXV., LXXXVII., LXXXVIII., LXXXIX., XCII., XCV., and XCVII.
LEATHER AND BINDINGS.
Arabian; Plate XXVI. Renaissance; Plates LXVIII. and LXIX. Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries;
Plates LXXV., LXXVIII., LXXXV., LXXXVI., and XCII.
KERAMICS.
Terra-Cotta, painted, glazed, and enamelled; Earthenware and Porcelain; Decorations of Utensils;
Pavements and Wall-Facings.
Assyrian; Plate IV. Greek; Plates W. and VI. Indian; Plate XIX. Persian; Plate XXII. Moorish; Plate
XXIX. Middle Ages; Plate XLVI. Renaissance; Plates LIX., LX., and LXVII. Seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries; Plates LXXXII. and XCVIII.
MOSAICS.
Greek; Plate VI. Greco-Roman; Plate IX. Moorish; Plate XXIX. Byzantine; Plates XXXI, XXXIII.,
XXXV., XXXVI., and XXXVII. Seventeenth century; Plate LXXXI.
INCRUSTATIONS AND NIELLOS.
Chinese; Plate X. Indian ; Plates XVI, XVII., and XVIII. Persian; Plate XXI. Renaissance; Plates LVI.
and LXVIII. Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; Plates LXXIV., LXXVIII., and LXXXIV.
GOLDSMITH'S WORK AND JEWELLERY.
Cloisonné and other Enamels; Gold Enamel ; Jewellery; Chasing.
Egyptian; Plate III. Assyrian; Plate IV. Etruscan; Plate VII. Chinese and Japanese; Plates XI. and XII.
Indian; Plate XIX. Byzantine; Plate XXXV. Middle Ages; Plates XLI. and XLIX. Renaissance; Plates LIX,
LXII., and LXIV. Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; Plates LXXIV, LXXVI., XCIV., and XCVI.








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