ranked amongst the best examples. The decorations, if any, are rudimentary; not only is the painting reduced in a few instances to some lines or spots made of a different clay, but even the embossed ornaments are replaced by lumps of clay or impressed lines in a kind of geometrical disposition. Art was not quite dead, but it scarcely breathed. However, these specimens are not altogether uninteresting, for they were the first efforts of our forefathers, and there is always a certain pleasure in witnessing the feeblest attempts made in the research of art.
But the time came when pottery was to accomplish another revolution, no less remarkable than the first. Strangely enough, it was again from the East, in nearly the same province in which it originally took its rise, that it was revived, and it is not unlikely that some faint tradition of the old processes was the source whence sprung the new ceramic era, which was to extend to our own time.
The precise date of this revival is not positively ascertained; but it was probably contemporary with the establishment of Islamism amongst the Arabs. The energy displayed by this people in improving and adapting the different fabrics to the requirements of their new religion, was no doubt beneficial to the art of pottery, and with their fanaticism and spirit of proselytism, they carried their new ideas to every country which they conquered. Syria became a great industrial centre, and some of its towns, such as Damascus, were soon famous for the perfection of their wares. To reach Europe, however, this new movement did not take its course through Greece and Italy, as in the first instance; it was through Egypt and the North of Africa that, at the beginning of the eighth century, it made its way to Spain, where it became firmly established. As regards pottery, nowhere were better specimens produced than in the towns of Malaga, Grenada, Cordova, and others, going northwards as far as Valencia and Toledo. The newest feature of the Arabian or Saracenic pottery (called Hispano-Moresco ware, when made in Spain) was the introduction of the oxide of tin in the glaze, to render it opaque. Previous to this innovation, when white was required for a design executed on a clay which did not take that colour in firing, these parts had to be covered with a silicious mixture, and subsequently coated over with a transparent glaze. This was the Assyrian and Persian process. To find a white opaque enamel, which could be applied direct on a coloured clay and adhere firmly to it, was a great discovery.
Everyone now knows how successfully these people used pottery for the ornamentation of their buildings, and how ingeniously they mixed transparent and opaque enamels to obtain an unprecedented harmony of effect. Not only did they use this tin enamel in parts, but also all over the ware, making it more or less opaque as they wished; and this was the origin of the pottery called majolica, which, according to tradition, was imported from Majorca to Italy, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and for the introduction of which credit is given to Lucca Della Robia. Terra in-vitriata was the first name given by this sculptor to his works, when they were coated with this opaque mixture. There was at that time such an earnest desire to find suitable materials for art decorations, that the new enamels soon ceased to be exclusively applied to architectural purposes. Under the beneficial influence of the revival of taste for ancient art, and the encouragements with which it met from the princes at that time ruling the Italian Republics, majolica attained its beauty, though its external appearance reminded us but little of its Spanish or Oriental origin. During the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the most famous in the history of modern art, the influence of the great painters of that period was soon felt by those whom we may call the artists of pottery, for the name of potters could hardly do them justice; and several of them applied their talents to the reproduction, on that ware, of their most celebrated paintings. It was reported that Perugino, Michael Angelo, Raphael, and many others painted majolica ware, probably on account of their cartoons being often reproduced; and it is sufficient to say that such talented men as Francisco Xanto da Rovigo, Orazia Fontana, and Georgio Andreoli, devoted their energies to the improvement of this branch of art. Most of the Italian towns had their manufactory, each of them possessing a style of its own. Beginning at Caffagiolo and Deruta, they extended rapidly to Gubbio, Ferrara, and Ravenna, to be continued to Casteldurante, Rimini, Urbino, Florence, Venice, and many other places.
After the sixteenth century, majolica soon degenerated in appearance and quality, the producers being more anxious to supply the market, than to devote to their ware the care and attention bestowed on it by their predecessors. In increasing the quantity of tin in their enamel, to make it look more like porcelain, they impoverished their colours, and this alteration, however prejudicial to majolica, assisted greatly in the new transformation which it was subsequently to undergo. It was under the name of faïence that it continued to be known, and France and Holland became the principal centres of its manufacture. At Nevers, it still resembled slightly the Italian ware, though at Delft, in Holland, it was principally made to imitate the blue and white ware of the Chinese, in which attempt the makers were often remarkably successful. At Rouen, the blue ornamentation was relieved with touches of red, green, and yellow; at Moustiers, the monochrome designs were light and uncommonly elegant; at Paris, Marseilles, and many other places, the flower decoration of the old Sèvres and Dresden ware was imitated with a freedom of touch and a freshness of colour which is really charming. This pottery, which was a great favourite in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, declined rapidly soon after our present earthenware made its appearance; the chief inducement for the change, on the part of the manufacturers, being the excessive price of tin, which is the principal ingredient of enamel.
Except in the provinces contiguous to France, Germany was never a producer of majolica. It created, however, a pottery entirely of its own, full of originality in its general appearance, and which, by the peculiarity of the process, was really a very distinct type. I am alluding to the Flemish and German stoneware. There is a tradition, that the first pieces were made in Holland at the very beginning of the fifteenth century. The principal centre of its production was, however, in Germany, at Nuremberg, Ratisbon, Bayreuth, Mansfeld, and other places; but the best were made in the neighbourhood of the Lower Rhine, where the clays most fitted for that class of pottery were easily to be found. Here we find, for the first time in Europe, the body of the ware partly vitrified by the high temperature to which it was submitted, and also the remarkable peculiarity, that it was glazed by the volatilization of common salt, thrown into the oven when the temperature had reached its climax. The combination of these two processes had never been effected before, and it would be difficult on that account to find any connection between stoneware and some of the Egyptian potteries. This stoneware varied in colour: some were almost white, some brown, others of a light grey, the last being the most valuable when the effect was increased by blue or purple grounds, harmonizing admirably with the foundation colour of the ware. The shapes are generally elaborate, with a great many mouldings, enriched with embossed ornaments in good taste, some of which were designed by no less an artist than T. Hopfer. The decline of this stoneware began with the seventeenth century, and from that time to the present, this material was only used for wares of the commonest kind. It is only very lately, that it was revived successfully by Messrs. Doulton and Co., of Lambeth.
France, which had not as yet any ideas about the process for imitating the Italian majolica, created towards the same time two new sorts of pottery, one of which is the Palissy ware, the other the faïence d'Oiron. Palissy, a very inquisitive and intelligent man, is said to have been possessed by a strong desire to reproduce some Italian ware, which he had the opportunity of seeing; whether it was a piece of majolica or of graffito, is not known. Left to his own resources – for there was nobody to instruct him – he succeeded by perseverance and industry in finding out the process for making the different coloured glazes that the Moors had used long before him. There was no discovery in this, but the talent which he displayed in the mixing and blending of these vitreous colours, combined with the incontestable originality of his compositions, have made this ware very difficult to imitate.
The time of its production was limited to the life of Palissy, for there is not really a single good piece which can be traced to his successors. In the faïence d'Oiron, incorrectly called Henri Deux ware, we find a real cream-coloured earthenware taking precedence of two hundred years over our own. It was made between the years 1524 and 1567, and we have now every proof that three persons co-operated in this invention: Heléne de Hangest, who had been formerly entrusted by François I. with the
