The love of china-ware still continues to be a mania amongst certain classes in this country. In the houses chiefly of the ‘upper ten,’ we see scattered in lavish profusion little Dresden figures, shepherds and shepherdesses, sweet, fresh, smiling, fantastic little loves, leaning on impossible crooks, or ogling us from under trees whose bowery greenery embodies all that is idyllic in crockery. Wonderful little old tea-cups, without handles, transparent as an egg-shell, with no colouring to speak of, faded, washed-out looking, are proudly pointed to as almost priceless. From these our great-great-grandmothers, in all the glories of hoops and furbelows, are said to have drunk their hyson and bohea in their great wainscoted and tapestried rooms, discoursing as they sipped the fragrant nectar, much as we their great-great-granddaughters do still, over our afternoon tea; for the world changes, but the human heart does not. All manner of vanities go the round; trivialities of dress or gossip; much tattling about the mote in our neighbour’s eye, and a careful avoiding, with commendable modesty, any reference even the most remote to the beam in our own. These pale transparent cups going their oft-repeated rounds may have sown in their day the seeds of many a pathetic commonplace tragedy or comedy, disseminating, as they circulated around the board, harmony and peace, or dissension and distrust.

Your true china collector has undoubtedly in him something of the antiquarian Dryasdust spirit, which loves to excavate and unearth the buried treasures of the past; in his case, however, it is gracefully blended with and overlaid by an instinctive fondness for the tender, lovely, fragile object of his regard. He knows, for he has often anxiously weighed it, how frail it is. Every time he looks at it he remembers the tumult of conflicting emotions with which, once secured, he packed it up with his own hands, and the fears for its ultimate safety which tempered the ecstatic pride of his triumph in the bargain which he had just struck.

To the china-hunter, every object in his cabinet or on his brackets is a trophy. That quaint old enamelled tazza of Lucca della Robbia’s, he bought in Rome; and as he gazes at it he thinks not so much of the astute Jew dealer, for whom, as he flatters himself, his own knowingness was fully a match, but of a long-forgotten holiday, with its bright days of sunshine, and the lengthening purple shadows of night deepening over the skies, and the grapes in ripe clusters on the wall. How well he remembers their flavour still, and the hand that plucked them for the stranger, and the eyes that looked into his! What was her name? He has forgotten it. What her fate? He has never known. A most prosaic ending, truly, to a vanished romance. But her charming grace and beauty unforgotten, blend still in his memory like a sweet rhythmical chant, and beautify with a glory not altogether its own this rare old cup of Lucca della Robbia’s.

With a sigh he turns from it to contemplate this old plate of mezza-majolica. Opal-hued, iridescent, it darts at him as he gazes upon it subtle flashes of blue and yellow and ruby-hued flame, rejoicing his soul with a deep unalterable conviction that it at least is real. He acquired it in Urbino, many, many years after he became the happy possessor of the Lucca della Robbia cup. He paid a full price for it too; but although a close man, he does not, and has never regretted the imprudence. At the sight of that beautiful plate, which he is pleased to call unique, his charmed heart melts away into softness, and his purse-strings begin to relax of their own accord. It moves his spleen to see careless visitors pass it by, as they sometimes do, to gaze at the soft beauty of that bright yellow-robed maiden, with dove upon her hand, who hovers self-forgetful upon the very verge of a pea-green china sea. The poor old quaint plate of mezza-majolica, gleaming there like a veritable jewel, is a treasure he jealously guards, and of its history we would say a few words.

The Italian enamelled earthenware which became famous under the name of Majolica, was first produced in 1300 in a town in the duchy of Urbino, which was under the feudal sway of the Malatestas, who were lords of Pesaro. Vessels of red clay such as had been long in use were covered with a thin coating of white earth obtained from the neighbourhood of Siena, and upon this ground different coloured patterns were traced. The vessels were then partly baked and covered with lead-glaze, after which they received a final firing. This delineation of coloured patterns upon an opaque white substance was the humble germ out of which the splendid many-hued majolica ware grew.

The colours employed were usually yellow, green, blue, and black; and the soft lead glaze, which was easily affected by external influences, imparted to the pottery that metallic iridescent lustre which is the special characteristic of majolica. To the Spanish Moors, this art was also well known; and some of their beautiful masterpieces finding their way into Italy, acted as a fillip to the infant art, which long remained swathed in rude and ungraceful swaddling-bands. While it was in this transition state, a new tin glaze was discovered, and applied to terra-cotta bas-reliefs by the famous Lucca della Robbia, and the lordship of Pesaro was sold to the house of Sforza. The new feudal superiors took an extreme interest in the potteries, and granted such special privileges to the manufacturers, that in a short time they succeeded in making Pesaro famous for the production of majolica. Early specimens of the ware manufactured here are generally adorned with Moorish arabesques and coats of arms. Heads of saints are also a favourite study, and so are heathen goddesses; while heads of the popes and Dukes of Urbino abound, the name being affixed, to prevent all mistake as to the portrait.

In the pottery of the Pesaro manufactory, the outlines of the subjects are traced in black or blue, and are in general correctly drawn; but the figures are flat and hard, without a vestige of the breadth and freedom which give such admirable life and vigour to the etchings on the Greek vases; all faults in design or execution being atoned for by the marvellous beauty and finish of the glaze, whose iridescent splendour has been equalled but never surpassed by later artists. The most beautiful specimens of this ware are due to the genius of an obscure artist, whose very name has been forgotten, who flourished in Pesaro about 1480. The dishes he made were large and thick, and were intended not so much for use as for display; as is shewn by holes in a projection behind, through which strings were passed in order to suspend them from the wall. The colours he used were blue and yellow, and they shone with a rare and matchless mother-of-pearl splendour.

At the end of the fifteenth century tin enamel had come into general use, and the potteries of the duchy of Urbino had begun to manufacture a finer majolica ware. The art may be said to have reached its most palmy period. The finest qualities of the old mezza-majolica were retained in the new manufacture, and far greater artistic skill was displayed in the painting and ornamentation. The town of Gubbio acquired a world-wide fame by the beauty of its lustrous majolica; and in the year 1485, Georgio Andreoli, a gentleman of Pavia, was attracted to it. He was a painter and sculptor by profession; and his majolica plates, glowing like jewels with the richest and most brilliant colours, are still famous. He excelled in the use of ruby red and golden yellow, and his ware is generally encircled by a brilliant flame-coloured border. He delights also in the picturesque effect produced by gold arabesques on a ground of vivid blue. His period of greatest activity was from 1486 to 1537. To china-fanciers he is known as the famous Maestro Georgio of Gubbio, and his works now command almost incredible prices. He is charged with having made a secret of his metallic lustre, and with having travelled about the country selling his recipes to the highest bidder; but for this charge there is no good ground. His brothers and his son worked along with him, and they had many assistants, to whom all the processes of the manufacture were known. In the city of Urbino, where Raphael was born, the manufacture of majolica ware was carried on with great spirit and success. Among the foremost of the ceramic artists of Urbino was a certain Orazio Fontana. His designs, which are characterised by great freedom and breadth of style, and truth and fidelity of drawing, are likewise brilliantly coloured and admirably glazed. One of his masterpieces, a magnificent cup, in the possession of Baron Rothschild, has his name inscribed upon it; a frequent practice with the great Italian potters.

All over the duchy of Urbino, potteries of this ware flourished at Gubbio, at Pesaro, at Urbino, and at Castel Durante. From these workshops potters travelled with their secrets to other parts of Italy and also to Flanders. The majolica of Castel Durante is very beautifully finished; and one of its principal manufacturers, Piccolo Passo, wrote a treatise upon the art of making and decorating majolica.

Faenza, which has given its name in France to all soft pottery, also produced much beautiful majolica ware. The Faenza majolica has, like that of Urbino, a rich marzacotta glaze, and some of the more ancient specimens are enamelled in berettino, a pale-blue tint. The later Faenza majolica is in style very like that of Urbino; decorative and embossed embellishments are laid aside, and pictorial designs are generally used.

Such is a brief sketch of an art for which Raphael and Marc Antonio did not disdain to furnish compositions, and whose masterpieces not only found ready access into palaces, but were presented to churches and hung up in cathedrals during the middle ages as votive offerings to saints.