The cruche or vase shown in Fig. 43 is supposed to have been used for libations when sacrifices were made to the gods. The neck and mouth are peculiar. This example has a red body covered with a black varnish, the designs showing the red.

The Lekythos is a sort of cylindrical amphora, with a straight neck and a single handle. This beautiful vase was made to contain perfumes and unguents, which were largely in use.

The figure (44) here given is a perfect example of this delicate vase, and is painted with colored clays, which are fixed to the body of the vase by heat, and are, therefore, indestructible.

A pot for infusion (Fig. 45) is easily understood. It is a Greek ancestor to our teapot, and is marked by that elegance of form which appears in much of the work of the Grecian potters.

The curious cup (Fig. 46) called a Couthon is about eight inches in diameter. Our illustration shows at A the top of the cup with the open centre, while at B and C may be seen the peculiar involuted form. Just what uses this could have been put to does not appear. It is more an object of curiosity and gracefulness than of use. Just in what way such a pot can have been turned is not plain to the uninitiated soul.

The Cup of Arcesilaus (shown in Figs. 47 and 48) is one of the most graceful and beautiful things which has come down to us from the Greeks. It is supposed to date back to the time of Pindar, some 500 years before Christ. The cup is now to be seen in the collection of the Rue de Richelieu in Paris; it was found in Etruria, but was made by a potter of Cyrene. It is discovered that at this African city was a great pottery for the making of Greek vases, out of which have come some of the most perfect found; among them this one. So far had the art and culture of the Greeks spread even then. The cup is about thirteen inches in diameter. Its name comes from the King of Cyrenaica, whose glories were sung by Pindar. The clay is very fine, and is of a delicate red; and this has been almost hidden by a black which appears solidly at the handles and foot. The design is put on with a colored clay or engobe of a yellowish-white, which is fixed by the fire; and it is believed that it must have passed through the furnace some three times.

The picture (Fig. 48) is curious and interesting. The king is shown sitting on the deck of a vessel afloat, holding his sceptre. Before him his servants are weighing baskets of merchandise, and below the deck others are seen carrying away the baskets into the hold. Now, what is this they are weighing and carrying away?

M. de Witte, in making his catalogue, decides that the Greek word near the manager who is pointing to the scales means silphium or asafœtida: the most odious of flavors to us, but one which still provokes delicious titillations in some Orientals. Altogether, we get a glimpse of life in this early Pindaric time; we see that a king then was not a mere figure-head, but a real king who oversaw his cargoes, and probably loved asafœtida, and was fond of making money, as some of our sovereigns are to-day.

The number of these vases, cups, etc., now existing in Europe is very great—at least 20,000, and some experts make the number as high as 70,000. The best-known collections are—at Naples in the Museo Borbonico, 2,000; in the Vatican at Rome, 1,000; at Florence, 700; at Turin, 500; at Vienna, 300; at Berlin, 1,690; at Munich, 1,700; at Dresden, 200; at Carlsruhe, 200; at Paris, the Louvre, 1,500; Bibliothèque Nationale, 500; at London, British Museum, 2,600. There are also a great many in private collections throughout the world.

What the keen and artistic mind wants to know is, not only what fine work was done by the Greeks, but why they did it—what, indeed, made that life more beautiful than any we find in all the earlier histories of man.

Through the wrecks and convulsions of time this crowd of delicate, perishable things still exists; what vast numbers must have been made and destroyed in the varying populations of Greece, Rome, Tyre, Carthage, and wherever Grecian civilizations and tastes made their way, it is not easy for the mind to compass. And we must remember that these things we now describe were not in every man’s hand; they were in a good degree for the rich and well-to-do. No slave (and slaves then abounded) used a kylix from which to drink his wine, nor an œnochoe from which to pour it.

That vases and cups were used and made especially as tokens of affection to be placed in the tombs, we know; that they were fashioned and painted for prizes at the Panathenaic games of Greece, we know; and that they were used in many ways in the symposia and feasts, we also know; and the numbers made must have been nigh countless. No satisfactory explanation of this profusion has so far been hit upon.

The potteries, of course, must have been many; for Brongniart cites in Greece proper twelve now known cities where vases were made; in Italy, some fourteen; and we know, also, that they were made in most

of the colonies where Greek customs stamped themselves. The demand for all this product was, of course, equal to the supply. While we know that Greek civilizations had reached a high place, and that man, physically and intellectually, had come nigh to perfection, woman had not kept pace with him. The home then was not what we now make it, or attempt to, a temple in which all of comfort, all of luxury, all of beauty, are gathered. The Greek house, even in Athens, was rarely, large; the principal salons for the feasts were used only by men, for the ladies of the house did not appear at those times. The women’s apartments were more secluded, and were not used for show; we should not, therefore, expect them to be filled with objects of art and ornament, though they would not, of course, be excluded. That there should be, as we have shown there was, a great production of articles devoted to the tastes of the fairer sex is easy to understand, and for them, as well as for men, were made the beautiful lekythoi, the alabastron, and other articles, for perfumes, for the toilet, and the bath; for these we can account. The life of the married woman was not then passed in public and out-of-doors as it now has come to be; she was not the central or only or principal figure around which society revolved; nor did the social or intellectual, the artistic or literary life find its centre or its applause with her. That she frequented the theatres with men is not believed, though she had her own opportunities for the indulgence of this taste; and it seems probable that some representations—as the tragedies—were open for both men and women. Her life partook of the seclusion which stamped the Asiatic courts. She had many duties and occupations; for the wife, with her maidens or her slaves, not only must prepare and serve the food, she must also spin and weave and make the garments for her household.

The care and education of children, the supervision of the house and the slaves, the production of stuffs and garments, of perfumes and unguents, gave necessary occupations in great profusion, and such as would alleviate ennui—such as would put amusements into a second rather than a first place in her heart.

But the truth is that her life was so dull, so devoid of exciting cares, that many women, and among them some of the most beautiful, most witty, and most cultivated of Greece, preferred the seductive and exciting dangers of the life of the hetaira to the safe and frigid respectability and dullness of the married wife.

That dress was a matter of important thought with woman there also, is beyond doubt; and the textures of the chitons and himations, the proper colors of their bands and their girdles, caused much perplexity to the beautiful Greek maiden, as they have to the beautiful American of to-day. But the Greek seems to have escaped one great misery and mystery—her fashions did not change; no staff of designing men was working with swift brain, hand, and pencil, in Athens or Corinth, to perplex her delicate mind with fashion-books, thus forcing her into exquisite torture, and keeping her there. The pictures upon the vases continuing through many centuries, show no very marked changes in dress. Was woman, then, supremely happy? Who can say! Besides dress, there can be no question, from the large numbers of perfume-bottles and vases of clay, as well as from the quantity of those of glass found by Cesnola in his excavations, that a very great degree of luxury, if not of dandyism, was reached by the women as well as the men in that “good old day of Greece.” We know something of the luxury, the lavish daintiness of Alcibiades and his friends, but very little of that of their wives.

There was, however, an evil thing in Greece, and one which the Greek wife felt strongly, keenly—it was the hetairai, the demi-monde of the great cities. Nowhere except in England and America has the virtue of married woman been held at so extreme and exalted a height, nowhere has its sale been lowered to such a depth, as in Athens.

Among the hetairai of Athens and Corinth were found the most beautiful, the most brilliant, and the most highly-cultivated women of Greece; to them every attraction was of inestimable value, and whatever would charm men was to be sought and seized. That among them were women of great mental gifts, of much political knowledge, of highly-cultivated artistic perceptions, we have every reason to believe; that the hetairai made their houses as attractive as possible we may also believe; and in them, we do not doubt, were found some of the best examples of the art of Greece outside the temples and the gymnasia. Here we may suppose that the fine vases found appreciative recipients, as well as appreciative admirers among men. That all who sold their charms were what we term “abandoned” is not true; they did not so consider themselves, and were not so esteemed among the men or women of Greece; that some of them, many of them, became so, is beyond doubt true. But among them some (how many who can tell?) were cultivated, interesting, able, there is no doubt; and that they continued so. It was long the fashion to suppose and to say that the poetess Sappho, and the politician Aspasia, were courtesans, which hardly any man will now maintain. As to the former less is known, but Aspasia, though not legally married to Pericles (as she could not be), was virtually his wife and partner through all his life, in his schemes for governing, exalting, and beautifying Athens. Her house then was the most beautiful, the most complete, and the most attractive, in Athens; and to it resorted the most noted statesmen, rhetoricians, philosophers, wits, and artists, of that most remarkable city and time.

It is a misfortune to us that no Greek house of the time of

Pericles, the perfect day of a most remarkable and highly-æsthetic civilization, remains; either its stone-walls, or in pictures on its temple-walls or on its vases. The great catastrophe which overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii has secured to us the means of knowing how the luxurious Roman lived in those little seaside cities eighteen hundred years ago; a time when Cæsar was hardly dead, and Jesus almost unknown. Every house in Athens and in Corinth, in Samos and in Melos, has been swept away by the besom of war or the feathered wing of Time. We know what we do know from the verses of the poets or the allusions of the playwrights, and that is all; but from these we gather that the house or home was a place rather for the woman than for the man; that in it the woman, though not exactly a prisoner as in the harems of the Asiatic kings, was expected to stay and to find “her sphere.” The porter sat at the door of the house, and when the woman walked forth she went accompanied by her slave, and it was known for what she went.

The life of the Greek man was essentially and in his best hours outside his own house. By the Greek man we now mean the upper or more wealthy classes; all these had their work done by slaves. He went forth in the early morning to visit the theatres, where he was entertained with the dramas of Æschylus, of Euripides, of Aristophanes; he breakfasted; he visited the markets; he went to the bath; to the hairdresser; he conversed in the porticoes; he frequented the gymnasia, where he could talk or listen, where he could exercise and enjoy his body, where beautiful bodies and philosophic tongues found free play and ample room. Everything of politics, of poetry, of art, of scandal, was a delight to the keen and active intellect of the Greek; as in St. Paul’s day, he was eager to hear or see some new thing: and when such a ruler as Pericles had grasped the purse and the sword, and had gathered together in the small city of Athens all the sculptures, all the poetry, all the eloquence, all the pictures, all the vases, to adorn and glorify it, the Greek man may be said—using our expressive American phrase—“to have had a good time!”—as good as he has been able yet to see in the long history of the race.

Knowing as much as we do of the life of the Greek man and the Greek woman, need we be surprised that the rather sharp-tempered Xantippe, wife of that delightful vagabond and philosopher, Socrates—he who puzzled the too conscious sophists and pleased the simpler people, who loved the true and hated the false; he who lived for wisdom and not for power; who cared much for mind and less for money; who basked in the sunshine of the porticoes and pined in the shadows of his own house—need we be surprised that this wife of his was driven to go forth at times to seek her vagrant lord in the throng of the market-place or the excitements of the Academy, and to lead him thence to the place of his wife and children? Need we be surprised that her speech was then unmelodious, unconjugal, and that she became a sport and by-word for the wicked wits of that brilliant city?

But with his faults Socrates had the great virtues of serenity and patience, always indispensable in the married man, at least.

If the vases had only preserved for us the portraits of Xantippe and Socrates, or even of the room they lived in, how much would we thank them! As to the pictures upon the vases, the best of them seem to be copied or adapted by the vase-painters from pictures of the best artists of Greece, made to illustrate the worship or the doings of the gods, the great deeds of the heroes, the feats at games, the triumphs at the feasts, etc., etc. Many of these are but carelessly, even poorly, put upon the vases; the best are those we must look for to admire, to enjoy, and to emulate.

The tub of Diogenes, there is reason to believe, was a great earthen vase or pot—the Pithos. These were built up of clay by the Greeks by hand around a frame, and were afterward baked. As they sometimes reached the dimensions of over three feet in diameter and six or seven feet in height, it is plain that they could not be turned upon the potter’s wheel. It is easy, too, to understand what an excellent shelter such a pot would make for such a cynical philosopher as Diogenes, who needed a very cheap rent. But if a wicked boy should throw a cruel stone some fine evening, striking the pot in a weak spot, the rent might end in a convulsion and ruin.

Etruscan Vases.—The “Etruscan vase” not being what we have here described and figured as the “Greek vase,” it remains to say briefly that the vases and pots made by the Etruscans before the coming of the Greek potters were quite different; ruder and less fine in form and in decoration. Indeed, it is not likely that the painted vase found in Italy, known as the Greek vase, was ever the work of the Etruscan workmen. The Etruscan pottery was thicker, less ornamental, and it indicates a different race and lower æsthetic development. In the Museum of Art at Boston is now placed a collection of Etruscan work which is said to be unique in this country as well as in England. In this are a number of vases which are ornamented with heads and figures in relief, not sharp and fine; these are wholly covered with a black color. A few which are painted are quite different and inferior to the work of the Greeks. The collection was secured in Italy by Mr. J. J. Dixwell, who has been so good as to present it to the museum. Figs. 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, are examples of some of the vases in the Museum of the Louvre, which present the general style and character of this work; they show clearly how much the real Etruscan vase differs from the true Greek vase.

CHAPTER III.

UNGLAZED POTTERY AT THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1876.

In Paris are still made many small figures in unglazed clay, some of which are full of artistic effects; they are sketches in clay, and are valuable when they are such. A great many are made at some of the potteries in England, which are useless as works of art, and are useful only as cheap decorations. Some of them are well moulded, and are pleasing. I noticed none of these at the Exhibition, though it is likely they were represented there.

A very fine example of this sort of unglazed figure-work was to be seen in a case in the Japanese collection sent by Kiriu Kosko Kuwaisha. It was a much higher class of work than the Peruvian, of which an illustration is given at page 19, and in its way could hardly be excelled. The figure was about twelve inches high, and seemed to be an intense embodiment of Japanese jollity; its half-shut eyes, lolling tongue, and relaxed figure, told the story perfectly. My Japanese guide, philosopher, and friend, did not consider it in any way a god, though it was so like the Chinese Poutai, god of content, that one wondered. If it indeed had been a domestic god, our keen Japanese gentleman would not have been likely to urge that view to us, who have less regard for other people’s gods even than for our own.

Not far from the Japanese exhibit was to be seen in the Spanish collection a pyramid of unglazed pottery, nearly or quite all of a light-buff color. It had this value, that it was such as is in use to-day in the houses of the common people; and that is about all we can say for it. The whole of it has been bought for the Pennsylvania School of Art. Why they should want a hundred pieces of this work one may well be at a loss to know, unless it is true that to own what nobody else has is always a pleasure.

Throughout the southern countries of Europe, in Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, this kind of pottery is made and used, and in some cases it has much merit in its forms; when decorated, it often reaches a naïve and fascinating kind of art.

Some very pretty, simple, and original pieces of this sort of pottery have been brought to us from time to time from Naples, though I have never seen any for sale. I learn from one of the Castellanis that in many places of Italy this sort of work is made to-day, much of it for decorative purposes. At some of them vases and other vessels which are distinctly traditions derived from the Greek potters of a thousand years ago are still made; at others are made pots and vases, cups and bénitiers, which have sprung out of the simple artistic feeling of the potters themselves, and which have that flavor of genuineness which cannot be too much encouraged. The tendency everywhere is to copy something; let us, as far as we can, buy the real and disparage the copy. A hundred pieces of this peasant pottery were sent me a few years ago, but they were wrecked upon the “vexed Bermoöthes,” and are lying at the bottom of the sea.

A few pieces of a light-gray body in the Egyptian collection were excellent both in form and in their many-colored decoration. These pieces were like, but better than, most of that which comes out from Africa through Tangier, of which we saw none in the Main Building, but learned that there was a collection in the Tunisian Building. Many good pieces of this barbaric pottery are in the country, though most of the specimens are glazed. These Egyptian pots have this vast merit, that they have come from the personal wants and the depths of the moral consciousness of the Egyptians themselves; from potters who know no language, no country, and no art, but their own; and therefore they are in no way imitations of what has been done in France, or England, or Boston.

The dark-red terra-cotta ware from Egypt was mostly in small pieces, but was excellent in its modeling and finish; and it was satisfactory to see that it was much bought by our people. This clay, with its polished surface, is peculiar to Egypt; at least we see it nowhere else.

This red Egyptian ware, is much like the red Roman ware often called Samian, which has been spoken of in a preceding chapter. Some larger pieces have been brought by private parties from Egypt, which have much merit in form, as well as in incised decoration.

The Turks sent a few examples of their simple pottery, some of it unglazed, and some covered with a deep-green glaze, which were simply what they pretended to be. Their polychrome decoration was also good, but not so good as the Egyptian.

Mexico, too, sent a small collection of this sort of work, which

smacked yet of the Aztec races, but too little of it to be of much use. A few glazed pots painted in the native fashion were excellent, and were bought up quickly, because they suggested Montezuma and his brown people, who have been wholly consumed by the greedy whites. The belief of Señor Alejandro Cassarin, the potter or dealer who sent from Mexico, evidently was that this native spontaneous pottery, which doubtless is yet to be found, in out-of-the-way places, is not a thing to be proud of—at least, it is not to be sent to us; that what we want is a very poor imitation of European porcelain. Nor is such a delusion his alone.

Of terra-cotta work in red and in buff there was a good show, mainly from England and Denmark. The clay, the modeling, and the finish, were quite perfect in many of these. The Watcombe people, in England, had already reached perfection in the color and texture of their clay; and the Greek vases, as well as jugs, ewers, and a variety of things—their own designs—could not have been bettered some three years ago. They were then satisfied to insure a simplicity which touched perfection. In their exhibit at Philadelphia it was clear that they are no longer satisfied with this, or that a jaded taste needs excitement. The work sent us constantly says, “We are trying to do something new and surprising, if nothing better than before.” The principal novelty was the combining of two colors of clay in the same pot; as, for example, a lighter body with a darker red for the handles, mouldings, and ornaments. Dignity and repose were thus lost, and no new pleasure was supplied. We felt sure that this would not last. And then, when bands of color or polychrome decoration are used on the fine red clay, they nearly always do harm; and the inevitable tendency to overdo cannot be restrained. Their modeled figures seemed to have neither the delicacy of the parian nor the sketchy freedom of some of the French designers. The color of the clay and the finish of the Watcombe terra-cotta vases are superior to any I have ever seen.

Some years ago the Copenhagen potters made a very considerable success in their revival of the Greek vase, both plain and painted in black, with Greek figures of horses, warriors, women, etc. (Fig. 54). These have had for the last ten years a large sale; and as we cannot have the real Greek vases because of their scarcity and price, it is well to have some examples so well copied as these are. But there is a limit to one’s capacity for copies of Greek vases, and it seems positive that we have reached it. We hope so. Ipsen’s widow sent us some of the yellow vases and pots, most delicately and delightfully painted with the lotus and other Egyptian designs, which for subtilty of color and precision of touch cannot be surpassed. These we were glad to see our people buying, and not the other.

Among much that was commonplace, there were many examples of good work in the department of unglazed pottery. It would have been a great satisfaction to have met with more which showed courage and freshness of design. While the public are not so responsive to these as one could wish, there is still enough to encourage potters and designers in this direction, if they will only believe it.

CHAPTER IV.

GLAZED POTTERY.—GRÈS DE FLANDRE, FRENCH, GERMAN, ETC.

“The mark caused by the absence of glaze is very apparent in Oriental porcelain, the bottom edge being rough and sandy. This defective appearance is obviated in Europe by supporting the piece upon a tripod with very small points (prenettes, Fr.). The three ugly marks upon old Chelsea china are caused by the clumsy tripod which was employed.”

The use of glaze and of tin to form the glaze or enamel seems to have been known to the Chinese beyond the time when Occidental records were kept. It appears, according to Sir Gardiner Wilkinson and Mr. Samuel Birch, that very early indeed the Egyptian potters knew the use of the siliceous glaze, composed of sand and potash or soda; and also that small sepulchral figures have been found, coated with enamels made from oxides of tin or copper, dating as far back as the sixth dynasty (B. C. 3703). In the museums of Europe are preserved tiles and bricks taken from the temples or palaces of Egypt and Babylon, and they must have been largely used long before our historical time. These glazed bricks are supposed to date back twenty-five hundred years before our era.

Mr. Birch, in his “History of Ancient Pottery,” says that the use of these bricks was probably learned by the Assyrians from the Egyptians, “who at a very early period had inlaid in this manner the chamber of the Pyramid at Saqquara.”

He says: “The glazed or enameled bricks from Nimrúd are of the usual kiln-dried kind, measuring thirteen and a half inches square, and about four and a half inches thick. They were laid in rows horizontally above the slates of sculpture of the Mosul marble, and seem to have been employed in the construction of cornices. They are glazed on one of the narrow sides or edges only, having on this edge various patterns, chiefly of an architectural nature, such as guilloche or chain ornaments, bands of palmettes or helices, and fleurettes or flowers of many petals. The colors employed were blue, black, yellow, red, and white. The glaze, which is much decomposed, easily exfoliates, and the colors have lost much of their freshness. It would appear that patterns of tolerably large size were executed in this manner, each brick having its appropriate portion enameled upon it.... Another brick, found by Mr. Layard in the earliest palace of Nimrúd, has an horizontal line of inscription in arrow-headed characters of a darker color, and with square heads like nails. Its tenor was of the usual purport: ‘This is the great palace of “Asar-aden-pal.” ’ Bricks of this glazed kind were found chiefly in the space between the great bulls which flanked the entrances of the chambers. From Nimrúd were also brought corbels of blue faience, or what has been called porcelain, the under part modeled to represent the five fingers of the hand.”

This much is given to show how the glaze was applied to pottery by the nations of that very early time. Where they got their knowledge—whether they discovered it for themselves in their search into the secrets of Nature, or whether they derived it from the great world of life which lay beyond in the far East—we do not and cannot know. But why this so valuable knowledge was not applied universally by those acute peoples to the utensils of every-day life, and to all which we now call “artistic pottery,” remains a curious question. That it was applied to some things, we know; for small vases, toys, marbles, etc., etc., have been found among the Egyptian tombs coated with this enamel; but most of the pottery found in Egypt is without glaze, which would indicate that what was in ordinary daily use was unglazed. Examples of this enameled ware are to be seen in the British and other museums of Europe.

Coming to the Greeks, it is singular that nothing of this enamel-glaze is found. The inference is, that they had not the knowledge of it, and that the art must have been lost; for surely so valuable and beautiful an art, if known, must have been applied by so æsthetic a people as the Greeks to the uses of life.

Upon the Greek vases, of which so many examples remain, there appears sometimes to have been used a very thin and very transparent varnish; but this does not seem to have been a glaze made either of glass, or of lead, or of tin. If it was a varnish, and not a polish, the probabilities point to its being a thin wash of soda or potash. This varnish served to protect the painting, but did not prevent the percolation of water.

The Greek methods prevailed among the Romans. Among the great numbers of potters, and the vast production of pottery, the Romans seem not to have used the glaze. All that remains of their work, found in Gaul, in Britain, and in other parts of Europe, is the unglazed ware.

The Arabs and the Moors brought into Europe a knowledge of the stanniferous (tin) glaze, as has been explained more fully elsewhere. To this keen and most energetic civilization Europe owes its beginnings in the arts of pottery, as well as in many other things.

The value of the glaze in all the arts of life cannot be estimated. When the only cooking-utensils were those made of unglazed pottery, the cooking was of the simplest, if not most insufficient, character. Indeed, at that time it is not likely that meat was cooked in the pot at all. In addition to this, the difficulty of making unglazed vessels capable of holding wine, oil, etc., without wasting them slowly, must have forbidden those things being kept to such a time as to insure perfection, not to mention the inevitable loss.

It is likely that such unglazed pots were then painted on the inside with some resinous substance which in a degree met the difficulty, but which, at the same time, imparted a flavor to the wine which we cannot believe to have been delicious.

Between China and the Spanish Moors exist a wide gap and centuries of time, in which glazed pottery and porcelain intended for the uses of domestic life seem to have been unknown. And this, too, was among the Greeks, the Phœnicians, the Romans—nations eager for every good thing, astute, keen, grasping. Among the remains of Roman art have been found a few pieces of pottery upon which are traces of the use of a glaze; but, if it was used at all, it seems to have been almost an accident—not at all as with us, to complete and perfect the work.

To the Moors and the Moorish civilization of Spain, Europe owes the knowledge or the introduction of this most valuable art, which has enabled her to reach such perfection in the making of fictile ware as we now see and enjoy.

Not only has the glaze (and enamel) given great strength to pottery, and increased its use to an infinite variety: it has also enabled most nations, beginning with the Chinese, to add to its beauty, and, indeed, to develop or create a method of artistic expression which is peculiar and most interesting. This subject will be treated more fully, in the progress of this work, in a chapter upon decorating porcelain and pottery.

After the work of the Moors in Spain, which will be treated in a separate chapter, one of the earliest applications of the glaze in Europe was upon a hard sort of stone-ware made at various places along the Rhine, and in Flanders and Germany. It has come to be known under a generic title of Grès de Flandre, while but little of it was really made in Flanders. A great centre of its manufacture and sale, as early as the 1300’s of our era, was at Cologne; and a more fit name for it would be Grès de Cologne; still, the usual name is the one the world knows it by.

The body or paste of which this is composed differs from the faiences or earthen-wares of which we write.

It is harder, heavier, and much more durable. The commoner kinds are made so by a considerable mixture of siliceous sand; while in the finer kinds, known as Grès de Flandre, there are mixed with the paste other clays, such as terre de pipe and kaolin. This hard and heavy body has long been used for common stone-ware jugs and pots made for every-day use. In China it was and is still used as a body for vases and dishes, which received a covering or “engobe,” and upon that an artistic finish—such as the crackle-vases, and many others.

The glaze upon what we know as Grès de Flandre was made by using in the furnace common salt; the fumes of which, combining with the fused silex, resulted in what is termed the salt-glaze. This requires a high degree of heat, in which no colors will stay except the blue of cobalt, a brown, and a violet.

The Grès de Flandre, of which we give two illustrations (Figs. 55 and 56), is now well known under that name. Its color is a liquid gray, and its decoration is made with the blue of cobalt. Some pieces of this ware are highly and beautifully decorated, as is seen on the fine fountain now in the museum of the Louvre (Fig. 55). Most of the figures and reliefs are made with moulds, which have a quaint interest; they were cut in wood, carefully, often with considerable artistic expression. The best work of this sort was made in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and is mostly German.

There were factories at Cologne, at Regensburg, at Baireuth, at Neuwied, at Grenzhausen, at Coblentz, and at other places along the Rhine. The same work was also made in Holland, in Flanders, and in Beauvais. Many pieces of this style of work were decorated with figures of saints, and other sacred emblems. Some pieces, such as salt-cellars, inkstands, and candlesticks, were carefully modeled by hand, and have thus an added interest. I know of but few pieces of this work in our museums, while those of Europe have made special attempts to secure examples of it; for it has a peculiar character of its own, and in many cases is delicious in color and most quaint and artistic in its forms and decoration. Often coats-of-arms are found impressed upon tankards and bottles and flagons of this work, and most of these are German. They were evidently reproduced from the moulds, and sold to others than the persons whose arms they bore.

The making of this ware was undoubtedly one step by which Böttcher at last succeeded in making true porcelain at Dresden.

Fig. 56 is a pilgrim-bottle, bought at the Bernal sale by the British Museum for eighteen pounds.

At Baireuth were made, in the 1600’s, some very curious mugs, called Apostle-Mugs, because the figures of the twelve apostles were worked in relief around the cup. The clay was a dark-brown, but the dresses of the figures and the inscriptions were painted in colors. Mr. Frederick J. Betts, of New York, has one of these interesting bits of work; they are now hardly ever offered for sale.