THE ceramics of America bring us into a field hitherto unexplored, and showing few footprints of the investigators who have been led to its borders. We are here confronted by a state of things to which we have hitherto been strangers. As creatures belonging to the New World we have been taught to look with a respect in which America has no share upon the aged civilizations of Egypt, Assyria, and China. Their ancient inhabitants were the patriarchs of the world, the pioneers of civilization; we are the latter-day heirs to the arts and sciences of which they laid the foundations. The present citizens of those lands are the children of Æons, we the mushroom growth of centuries. Research has already partially succeeded in endowing America with so much of the venerable as can be conferred by age. Such notions as those above referred to are being rapidly dissipated. We have long known that the hemisphere we inhabit was styled new, not because its geological formation is of later growth than those of{392} the Old World, nor because its inhabitants are the after-math of the world’s population, but because five hundred years ago it was new to the navigators of the East. We now know that, from Lake Superior to Peru and Chili we can traverse the sites of old settlements and find the vestiges of peoples who lived we cannot tell how many hundred or thousand years ago. In the history of ceramic art America in no way differs from Europe or Asia. We can begin with the sun-dried bricks of the Peruvians, or Mound-builders, and end with the porcelain of Greenpoint. As Europe loosed its hold upon the earlier arts of Greece and Rome, was dismembered, and was for centuries plunged in darkness by the incursions and dispersal of barbarians, and then, as it revived, developed a new artistic sense and greater strength, so America passed through a precisely similar ordeal.

Two thousand years ago—possibly many more—art and civilization existed here, and continued to expand until Europeans came and checked their farther growth. America is not even singular in this, that a broad chasm divides the old from the new.

There are thus two great periods which we shall be called upon to consider. There is, first, the ancient, when the aboriginal people were building curious and wonderful monuments of their presence, and modelling the quaint vessels now found in our museums. There is, then, the second period, limited to little more than half a century, in which art wears a modern guise, when the products of American potteries become a recognized item in the industry of the country, and the manufacture is substantially founded upon a broad commercial basis. Our inquiry will not, therefore, be entirely confined to a recent past and a present chiefly remarkable for the promise that it contains. We shall, in a hasty review, turn back across the centuries intervening between the present time and the advent of Europeans with Columbus, Cortez, and Pizarro, across the barbarism of the Indian period, across even the earlier times, when the Aztecs in the North, and the Peruvians under the Incas in the South, were cultivating their peculiar forms of civilization, to a more remote past occupied by those elder children of Time, to whose heritage these peoples appear to have succeeded. Afterward will come the indulgence of the characteristic tendency of the nineteenth-century American, who is more addicted to looking to the future than to the past. In the mean time, we must{393} try to accustom ourselves to the fact that, for the purposes of a continuous history, the potters of our own time are the successors of those who deposited their urns in the mounds of the Mississippi valley and in the tombs of Peru.

It will probably be both the only historically consequent and the most lucid method to treat the different countries from south to north. We begin with Peru. We need not go into the theories, mostly fanciful, by which an origin and genealogy are found for the ancient inhabitants of America. We cannot even undertake to solve the question whether the New World may not be the Old.

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Fig. 362.—Peruvian Water-vessels.
Fig. 362.—Peruvian Water-vessels.

The evidence in support of America’s having been the resting-place of the lost tribes of Israel, of its having been visited from the Pacific by Malays, from the Atlantic by Phoenicians, of the truth of the old legend of Atlantis, a land which lay beyond the Pillars of Hercules, is in great part composed of inferences from assumptions. Reason would point to Behring Strait as the point at which the first inhabitants entered, but even that supposition may account for nothing more remote than the arrival of the Indians of North America. Or, to find a genealogy for the same people, we might adopt Mr. Griffis’s very plausible theory of a Japanese descent, based upon the fact that “for twenty centuries past Japanese fishing-boats and junks, caught in the easterly gales and typhoons, have been swept into the Kuro Shiwo, and carried to America.” It is more pertinent to our purpose to find that, amidst a civilization which bears a stamp of originality, ceramic art followed the course it had taken in Europe, Africa, and{394} Asia. Similarity in forms, even in symbols, may argue nothing more than a mysterious identity in the workings of humanity toward artistic and religious expression. They cannot, without other evidence, be held to prove an identity of origin. This preliminary observation is made that we may not fall into the baseless theorizing which is the bane of science. External resemblances have, before this day, sadly misled scientists, with whom possibilities have become probabilities, and probabilities have unconsciously passed into assumed facts.

Let us take the parallel supplied by the search for the primitive tongue before language became the subject-matter of a science. For centuries the idea was entertained that the honor of priority was to be accorded to the Hebrew. In the sixteenth century Goropius, of Antwerp, proved, beyond a peradventure, that the language of Paradise was Dutch. Erro advocated the claims of Basque; and about a century after Goropius had settled the question, it was gravely recorded in the minutes of the Chapter of Pampeluna, that, though it could not be asserted with confidence that Basque was the primitive language of mankind, yet “it was impossible to bring forward any reasons or rational objection to this proposition, that it was the only language spoken by Adam and Eve in Paradise.” Assume the positive, and leave it to objectors to prove the negative! Science came afterward, and found that not fanciful verbal resemblances, but similarity of grammatical construction, was the test of radical affinity, and all the above fine theories were exploded. The rule will hold good with pottery. If two potters at two places far remote from each other, possibly as far removed in point of time, should produce similar forms, it would be rash at once to conclude that they were inspired by the same idea or followed the same model. The adoption of such a course would amount to a resuscitation of the extinct philological rule of comparing the words in different tongues to demonstrate relationship. We shall find a point for this caution as we proceed.

When Peruvian civilization began we have no means of ascertaining. Repeated changes have swept over it. It rose and fell, and rose and fell again, at epochs only partly within our ken. Of the overwhelming antiquity claimed for it some of the facts brought together by Mr. J. D. Baldwin may give an idea. Montesinos, a Spaniard, who believed Peru to be the Ophir of Solomon, dates its ancient history{395} from the year B.C. 2500. His first period extends down to the first or second century of our era, when the ancient kingdom was broken up into fragments, and shorn of its earlier glory. Then came a long interval of confusion, strife, and internecine struggle, which ended with the advent of Inca-Rocca, the first of the Incas. The Incas had extended their sway over the old limits of Peru, when Pizarro came, in 1531, and with his Spanish followers swept everything back into chaos. A greedy lust for gold was the sole impulse of the treacherous and brutal invaders. Perfectly dead to every sense of honor, stained with the reddest hues of crime, too rapacious to withhold their hands from the commission of any brutality, too crassly ignorant to care for knowledge, the Spanish buccaneers turned Peruvian progress back in its course, and struck such a blow at the vitality of the country that it has never recovered.

It will at once be thought that B.C. 2500 is a very remote date at which to begin the history of a country in the New World, but let us see what countenance science lends to such a chronology. Professor Orton says: “Geology and archÆology are combining to prove that Sorata and Chimborazo have looked down upon a civilization far more ancient than that of the Incas, and perhaps coeval with the flint flakes of Cornwall and the shell mounds of Denmark. On the shores of Lake Titicaca are extensive ruins which antedate the advent of Manco Capac (the second of Montesinos’ oldest dynasty of kings), and may be as venerable as the lake-dwellings of Geneva.” Mr. James S. Wilson, in 1860, found “ancient, or fossil, pottery” on the coast of Ecuador. To help in assigning it an age, the fact is all-important that it was found below a marine deposit several feet in thickness. This pottery, then, was made; the land was submerged at a rate almost incalculably slow; it was covered with a marine deposit; the land was then upheaved to its former level, again at a very slow rate, and seventeen years ago, the pottery came to light, like a fossil taken from the rocks, to tell us that at an age so remote that it is hard even for imagination to reach it, the Peruvians were accustomed to working in clay. Compared with this people the Incas are creatures of yesterday, and the earliest date of Montesinos is hardly mediÆval. The difficulty is to assign an exact, or even an approximate, date to the ceramic remains we possess. Many of them belong to an era preceding{396} that of the Incas, but no more precise language can be employed in specifying their age. The conditions, moreover, are such that an erroneous deduction might easily be made. The great road from Quito to Chili, for instance, is built chiefly of stone. The same material was used for the inns along its course, and for many other buildings. This road must, at least in part, be ascribed to a period anterior to that of the Incas. At a later date, when the least ancient part of Pachacamac, the ruined city of the Incas, near Lima, was built, sun-dried bricks appear as the chief building material. Pachacamac was originally built by the natives of the coast, and among its ruins are those of one of their temples, composed of adobes painted red. The Inca Mamacuna on the same site is composed of the same material. This is a reversal of previous experience. We have hitherto associated unbaked bricks with the earliest attempts of the potter. If we argue from Asiatic or European usage, the most ancient Peruvians would appear as primitive settlers ignorant of art, which we have already seen they were not.

The best articles of pottery have been taken from the tombs. The connection of moulded clay with the burial of the dead was thus universal. We have seen the Egyptian mummy surrounded by vases and jars, urns holding or covering the ashes of the ancient British dead, the hut-shaped urn of the Teuton, the remains of the Roman legionary deposited in an olla covered by tiles or bricks, and the tuguria of Etruria; and here, in Peru, is a precisely similar custom regulating the burial rite.

At Pachacamac Mr. Squier found three strata of mummies. Most of these were taken from little vaults of adobes, roofed with sticks and rushes. In one of them he found, lying beside the dead family, the implements of the husband’s business as fisherman, the wife’s domestic articles, including a primitive spindle, a girl’s work-box under her body, small contrivances of hollowed bone for cosmetics, and between her feet the dried body of a pet parrot. An infant’s body had a rattle beside it. “Besides the bodies there were a number of utensils, and other articles in the vault; among them half a dozen earthen jars, pans, and pots of various sizes and ordinary form (Fig. 363). One or two were still incrusted with the soot of the fires over which they had been used. Every one contained something. One was filled with{397} ground-nuts, familiar to us as peanuts; another with maize, etc., all except the latter in a carbonized state.” Probably the nuts and maize were deposited for the use of the deceased in the future, and the supposition helps to increase the illusion that we are away from Peru, and back among the graves of Ancient Egypt. To this superstition, common, as we have seen, to nearly all peoples, we are therefore indebted, not only for our knowledge of Peruvian pottery, but for much of our information regarding the people themselves. No other place could have equalled the grave in safety for the preservation of the records which have been passed from its secrecy into our hands. The imaginary wants of a future state led the poor and the Inca to be laid in their respective vaults with the articles they had used here, and which they were supposed to stand in equal need of hereafter. “Every Inca,” says Mr. Ewbank, “had his cooking utensils in his cemetery; not only his gold and silver ware, but, observes the native historian, ‘the plates and dishes of his kitchen.’” The favorable conditions of soil and climate under which they were interred increase the difficulty of telling their age by examination merely. They might from their appearance have been buried for generations or for ages. It is, however, evident, from the character of the deposits and the assumed wants they anticipated—corn, cooking-vessels, toys, pets, fishing-lines, spindles—that the Peruvians shared the belief held by Christians, that here they were strangers and sojourners. They prepared for the next life by taking all their movables with them, as if merely changing their place of abode.

The tombs being thus the great receptacles of Peruvian antiquities, what do we find to be the general character of the art represented in the pottery? The same that is found in the architecture or statuary of the country, viz., the greatest possible disparity in both design and workmanship. On one hand are creations of art, the conception of an artist carried out by an artist’s hand; on the other are the{398} most outrageous concessions to an idolatrous barbarism. In a similar manner, earthen-ware vessels of diametrically opposite types are found side by side in the same tomb. To perplex us still farther, French writers have advanced the theory that for a very long period art in South America gradually but surely declined. They state that from a primitive simplicity and purity of style it sank step by step into barbarism.

This may or may not be true, but in any case the two sets of facts may be thus explained. We have seen that in Egypt religion set a limit to art. Practically the matter resolved itself into this, that the potter-artist could rise above neither the god he worshipped nor the sacred symbol he revered. Priestcraft is necessarily conservative. Change and improvement involve a departure from the old, and the ancient gods might be left behind and their shrines deserted, were art to rise above the delineation of the artistic abominations which were encased in sacred tradition as the symbols of deity. The image cannot change any more than the god. In Egypt nearly every form of life—bird, beast, and plant—was monopolized by its religious system and petrified into a traditional form. It is possible that a similar influence was at work in Peru. The rude forms may really have been what we have styled them, “concessions to an idolatrous barbarism.”

It is necessary in the case of Peru, as in that of China or Egypt, to make an attempt to discover the essentials of its religion, that we may understand its ceramic art. With Peru, however, we must in part work backward, by first constructing a system from what we find upon pottery. Mr. Squier gives much valuable information on this point. “To them,” he says, referring to the sacred vessels of pottery devoted to religious and mortuary services, “in default of other probable or possible means of recording a religious symbolism, we must look for all the scanty illustrations we are ever likely to obtain of the religious ideas and conceptions of their makers.” Pachacamac took its name from the chief divinity of the people prior to the coming of the Incas, and means, “He who animates the universe,” “The creator of the world.” The idea of a supreme being may thus be inferred to have been the foundation of a system which, like many other ancient religions, resorted to symbols, and thence by an easy transition assumed in popular practice the form of idolatry. We thus{399} find that when the Inca Yupanqui invaded the Chimus, he called upon them to renounce their worship of fishes and animals, and turn to that of the sun. There is no reason for believing that the creed of the Incas was superior to that of the Chimus. It appears rather that, in broadly condemning that people for their worship of animals, the Inca mistook the use of symbols for the adoration of the animals so used. Our researches in Egypt and elsewhere would lead us to the conclusion that if the worship of animals existed anywhere, it resulted from a misapprehension by the ignorant of the purpose of symbolizing by living things the attributes of a higher power. As in Egypt, so in Peru the religion may be said to have been dual. On the one hand is the worship of a supreme power, and the personification of visible agencies in air, earth, and water. On the other is a lower form, an idolatry bordering upon fetichism. Under the higher form water is personified, and the god thus constructed is accompanied by befitting symbols of his domain—the turtle, fish, or crab; the earth is personified, and has as symbols the serpent and lizard; the air is also personified, and the figure carries in his hand a spear, as representing the thunder-bolt, his symbol. Mr. Squier gives an engraving of a design upon a Chimu vase, in which the powers of earth and sea are arrayed in combat. The latter is armed with the claws and shell of a crab, hence assumed to be his symbol. The former bears on his front a serpent’s head, wields a horned serpent in one hand, and has two similarly horned reptiles hanging at his back: hence the serpent is accepted as his symbol. Probably coeval with a form of belief which sought such expression, was another under which images were resorted to, and set up as the recipients of the worship originally directed to a higher power. It is not impossible that the worship of a supreme being, and of his attributes and symbols, may have been coexistent among the same people. On the contrary, such actually appears to have been the case; and if the highest form of belief existed along with the lowest form of expression, it is not hard, as already pointed out, to find a reason for the coexistence of the highest and lowest forms of art.

As to the French theory of a long-continued decline of Peruvian art, if we assume its truth, it may be explained in the light of Peruvian history. The supposition has reference, apparently, to the earliest{400} Peruvian elevation, prior to the dismemberment of the empire. Before the coming of the Incas art must have suffered from the civil discord, and under the Incas its recovery was probably hindered by the wars which extended down to the Spanish conquest. After Pizarro—a second death.

Let us now examine some of the forms of Peruvian pottery. It would be impossible to classify or enumerate them all. Nature and religion contributed decorations and forms. The beings of earth, sea, and air—men, fishes (Fig. 364), animals, and plants (Fig. 365)—were modelled in clay, and decorations were drawn from the same sources and from the customs of the people. The only classification of a comprehensive character is that into coast and inland. The former of these divisions comprises the greater part of the specimens now existing, including, of course, all from Pachacamac, Huacho, Santa, and Truxillo, or Chimu. The latter includes all that comes from Cuzco (Fig. 367) and other places in the interior.

Visitors to the Centennial Exhibition may remember to have seen a large array of vases and household utensils sent from Lima. In the collection of Mr. W. B. Colville were several clay idols, belonging to the period before the advent of the Incas. Some of these were wrapped in cloth, and none possessed any claims to artistic finish or design. A similar image was exhibited by Brown University, in the Rhode Island section. All were mere caricatures of the human form. Along with them, in the space allotted to Lima, were several hundreds of quaintly shaped water-vessels and bottles. In some of these were to be found those compound typical forms distinctively American. In others appeared forms which at once recalled the Egyptian. Of the latter the most remarkable were{401} the double or twin bottles joined together by bands at the neck and base, after a fashion observed in Egypt and also in Mexico. It is unnecessary to conclude from this fact that Egypt had an ancient connection with Peru. Sometimes on one of the bottles a head was placed as a cover to the orifice, others had both necks plain and open.

The more characteristic forms belonged to the class comprising the water-vessels. Of these the favorite form appeared to be what might be described as a pot-bellied graybeard ornamented with a rude semblance of the human face, hands, and feet. It was made of all sizes. Another might be taken as the prototype of the modern round-bodied glass water-bottle, or carafe. A third had the arched syphon handle characteristic of an entire class; and on the body, under the span of the arch, was the figure of an animal, too rudely modelled for us to give it a name. On a small proportion of those mentioned weak and undecided colors were applied in a primitive style of decoration, and in others the ornamentation consisted of lines and dots or studs.

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Fig. 367.—Vases from Cuzco.
Fig. 367.—Vases from Cuzco.

{402}

The Peruvian potters bestowed a large share of their inventive talent upon water-vessels, and the reason is not difficult to find. According to its present limits, Peru extends from the third to the twenty-first degree south latitude. In the sixteenth century it included the entire territory now divided into Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and Chili. The country in which its remains are found extended over two thousand miles south of the equator. In some parts of this vast territory rain occasionally falls, in others never. In this fact we see the necessity for ample means of slaking thirst. The quaint forms are largely due to the dread of small creeping animals finding their way into the jars or flagons. The latter were, therefore, made in the comparatively intricate shapes already described, and in others still more complex and more highly ornamental.

The largest class comprises those with the bifurcate spout, which serves at the same time for a handle. This is found attached to vessels of every conceivable form. The simplest shape is that seen in the specimen from the Smithsonian Institution (Fig. 368), the body of which, however, is somewhat peculiar, by reason of its rising from the base in a coil of spiral folds. Several modifications of this style are seen in the engraving (Fig. 369). The presence of this spout in any of its forms is of special interest as distinctive of pottery from the coast settlements. Its modifications include a vast number of interesting examples more or less artistic. From the single vessel with bifurcate spout we may pass to others in which there are two openings joined together by a handle. Higher than these are the vases, in which, with only one orifice, the body is double.

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Fig. 369.—Ancient Peruvian Pottery.
Fig. 369.—Ancient Peruvian Pottery.

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Fig. 370.—Peruvian Pottery.
Fig. 370.—Peruvian Pottery.

In one the receptacle for the water consists of a series of four chambers, with pointed bases arranged in a circle, and joined together (Fig. 370). The handle is the arch, with spout on the top. In some the vessel assumes the form of a fish, with a handle on the ridge of{403} the back, or of an animal with semi-human face. The twin shape is exceedingly varied. A very fine specimen has the bottles with round, flattened bodies, and one of them surmounted by a diminutive human figure holding a cross on the right shoulder, while from the left the handle crosses to the tall, slightly tapering neck of the twin bottle. The flat sides of the bottles are decorated with studs and zigzags, which might be construed into serpentine forms. A bird sitting in the cavity of one neck sometimes takes the place of the heads already alluded to. In some of the double bottles the communication is through the handle. In others it is effected by joining the bodies together, as in the curious specimen (Fig. 371), in which the rudely modelled kneeling figure of a man eating and drinking is joined to{404} the twin compartment at the back by the passage-way between the two sections. There are many other varieties; but the most remarkable specimens are those in which an attempt is made to simulate the human head and form. The former is carved in coarse lines covering the entire expanse of a heavily formed vase, the handles of which, low down on the body, represent the ears. Even lower than this, and parallel with the most primitive bessa of Egypt, are other wide-mouthed jars of a type altogether different, designed to serve a purpose entirely distinct from those last considered. From these as a base we can rise to what we must regard as the chefs-d'oeuvre of ancient American art.

It is curious to observe, en passant, a similarity of usage between Peru and Greece (Figs. 372 and 373) in selecting the human head as the model of a drinking-cup; but let us observe the Peruvian type. In one (Fig. 373) the head is thrown back, and from the forehead to the crown passes the syphon handle. To balance this backward weight the face is thrust forward, and the expression is affected by the position. We see that the artist has made allowance for this in the lines round the mouth and the slightly parted lips. A faint suspicion of weakness is thus left upon the countenance. Taking it in profile, one almost wonders where the artist found a model for the large but well-formed nose and{405} strong underjaw. Even finer is another head (Fig. 374), covered with a close-fitting cap falling in heavy flaps behind. In this the face is, we would say, of the best Saxon type, full of strength, vigor, and determination. Not a weak line can be found. With it before us, all wonder as to the civilization of ancient Peru is at an end. Apart altogether from the workmanship, there are moral qualities traceable in the model which convince us that with such men civilization was a condition of life; not a labor, but a necessity. The face wears the placid, self-confident, powerful expression of one born to be a ruler of men. That the artist has caught such a look of strength in repose may imply either his mastery of portraiture or his familiarity with a high type of manhood.

Belonging to a lower order of the same class is that given in the engraving (Fig. 375), the head of a man whose whole history is written in indelible lines in his face. The head is that of Ruminhauy, or Rumminaui, a Peruvian cacique. The piece is from the collection of Senhor Barboza, Rio de Janeiro, and originally belonged to General Alvares, “the last Spanish political chief and commandant of the province of Cuzco.” Mr. Ewbank saw it at Rio, and gives a description of it, and a sketch of the monster whose features are thus preserved. The piece is of reddish clay, modelled by hand, nine inches in height, and with an internal depth of six inches. Everything indicates{406} that the work is a likeness. Little peculiarities, such as the want of a tooth and a scar on the cheek, cannot be explained upon any other hypothesis. The piece is comparatively recent. When, in 1531, Pizarro entered Peru at Tumbez, the Inca, Huayna Capac, had divided his kingdom between his two sons, Huascar and Atahualpa, between whom a struggle ensued for the sole power, and resulted in the death of Huascar. Atahualpa was afterward seized by Pizarro, and, under circumstances of gross treachery and brutality, was put to death. It was then that Ruminhauy comes upon the scene in the history of Garcilasso de la Vega. Scheming to succeed Atahualpa, he invited his brother and children to a banquet, and, after making them drunk, murdered them. With the skin of Atahualpa’s brother he covered a drum, and left the scalp hanging to it. His next atrocity was the burying alive of a number of women, young and old. “Thus,” says Garcilasso, as quoted by Mr. Ewbank, “did this barbarous tyrant discover more inhuman cruelty and relentless bowels by this murder committed on poor silly women, who knew nothing but how to spin and weave, than by his bloody treachery practised on stout soldiers and martial men. And what farther aggravates his crime was, that he was there present to see the execution of his detestable sentence, being more pleased with the objects of his cruelty, and his eyes more delighted with the sad and dismal sight of so many perishing virgins, than with any other prospect. * * * Thus ended these poor virgins, dying only for a little feigned laughter, which transported the tyrant beyond his senses. But this villany passed not unpunished; for, after many other outrages he had committed during the time of his rebellion against the Spaniards, and after some skirmishes with Sebastian BelalcaÇar (who was sent to suppress him), and after he had found by experience that he was neither able to resist the Spaniards, nor yet, by reason of his detestable cruelties, to live among the Indians, he was forced to retire with his family to the mountains of Antis, where he suffered the fate of other tyrannical usurpers, and then most miserably perished.” These details, beside giving a ghastly kind of interest to the object engraved, enable us to form an opinion of the artist’s ability. Aside from the{407} possibility that the piece has preserved the actual features of the monster, it certainly gives expression to all the bad qualities with which the historian has clothed Ruminhauy, and contrasts strongly with those given above, and with that (Fig. 376) from the Smithsonian Institution.

After these individual examples a few of the leading points of Peruvian decoration and technique must be noticed. We have seen that in forms the leading tendency was toward the reproduction of the natural object. Mingled as the high is with the low, the ultimate aim appears to have been the excellence contained in similitude. In decoration we find designs with which old-world experience has made us more or less familiar. The vessels on which they appear illustrate the tendency not toward a purely ornamental art, but toward the artistic embellishment of the useful. Like all other nations, the Peruvians rose from use to beauty, and having devised the shape best subserving the useful object, they then attempted its ornamentation. In doing so they resorted to decoration closely allied with the European and Asiatic. Their fret is the same as that distinguished by the name “Grecian,” although it originally came from Asia. Their scrolls also occasionally bear a close resemblance to the European. The faces already referred to are either incised, engraved, or laid upon the surface. Those engraved leave the impression of having been cut into a body made{408} sufficiently thick to permit of the successful application of such a method of decoration. They have no appearance whatever of having been made from a mould. Of the same general character is the drinking-vessel (Fig. 377). The design, the import of which it is difficult to determine, is graved in a panel covering the greater part of one side of the piece. Other pieces have the figures similarly graved upon panels studded with dots, for the evident purpose of heightening the relief. On one of this class is a long-billed bird, and on another, which is here given (Fig. 378), the design consists of a nondescript animal. A singular resemblance to a Chinese habit is discoverable in the employment of monkey forms, either for handles or otherwise, where the Chinese used those of lizards. On one of the double-bellied bottles common to Peru, China, and Japan, we find two monkeys clinging to the upper sphere, as if supporting it.

The chief colors employed were red, black, and brown. It appears probable that they were mineral colors fixed by firing, since we cannot otherwise account for their preservation. The Chilians are said (Hartt) to have baked their pottery in holes dug in the hill-sides, and to have applied to it a sort of varnish made of mineral earth. It is worth noting, however, that the Peruvians possessed vegetable dyes of which we have no practical knowledge. All the wonderful colors used for dyeing cloth, which preserved their original hue and brilliancy after ages of exposure or burial in the tombs, are vegetable. The lasting quality alone does not, therefore, compel the conclusion that the colors on pottery are mineral.

The consideration of the uses of these colors, and of several other{409} kinds of decoration, may be combined with that of the customs and tastes of the Peruvians as reflected in their clay records. Travellers reaching Peru from the sea tell of encountering, as they neared the shore, numbers of the natives paddling their caballitos. These quaint apologies for boats are merely bundles of reeds tied together, across which the boatman strides, and rows, Indian fashion, with a double-bladed paddle. The prow is turned up in front. So crazy a craft would seem to be among the things least calculated to inspire the potter with an idea. It did, however, prove suggestive (Fig. 379), and the caballito has been found in clay on the sites of different coast settlements.

We also learn from their ceramic decorations that the Peruvians of Chimu lived in buildings of a single story with slanting roof, and having a hole in the gable for light or ventilation. That they had a taste for music is placed beyond dispute by their vessels and instruments of clay (Fig. 380). Some of their ruder devices are very singular. Mr. Ewbank mentions a whistle formed in the body of a small bird of baked clay. The relic, he says, was very old, and the head missing. “The tone was shrill and clear, and was pleasantly modified by partially or wholly closing with the finger an opening in the breast.” The water-vessels are also sometimes so constructed that the handle passes from the spout on one side to a similar projection on the other, on which is a bird or animal’s head. The air rushing through a hole left in the latter, as the vessel is being filled or{410} emptied, frequently causes a sound resembling that peculiar to the bird or animal. To this class of “whistling jars” belongs the double vessel (Fig. 371) representing a man at lunch. Musicians and musical instruments are painted upon vases, and, as in the cut (Fig. 381), the vessel itself may be a representation of a musician.

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Fig. 384.—Peruvian Pottery.
Fig. 384.—Peruvian Pottery.

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Fig. 385.—Peruvian Vessels.
Fig. 385.—Peruvian Vessels.

The decorations hitherto observed have consisted of gravings in the paste, dots, and colors. The black-ware jar (Fig. 382) is a farther exemplification of the first of these methods. The head and the ears of corn which divide the surface into four sections have all been apparently carved in an originally thick body. By cutting it down the ears are left in high relief. The specimen is evidently very old. The vessels decorated with paintings are generally of a totally different artistic order, although a few, such as the cup here given (Fig. 383), combine painting with a rude attempt at modelling. The handle consists of a monkey with its forepaws, or hands, resting upon the edge of the cup. It was taken from a grave at Arequipa, eleven feet below the surface of the soil, and was brought to this country and presented to the Smithsonian Institution by United States Consul Eckel, Talcahuana, Chili. The decoration is dark brown on a creamy ground. Similar to it, but having the mitred head of an Inca on the handle, is the cup on the left of the adjoining cut (Fig. 384). The other vessels, with the exception possibly of the lower one, have been used as pans or boilers, the largest showing marks of the fire, and all being destitute of ornament with the exception of the painted stopper of the largest specimen. It thus appears the Peruvians used earthen-ware for culinary purposes, and several vessels of this kind are elaborately{411} painted in black and red on the yellow ground. In the illustration (Fig. 385) Nos. 1 and 3 are of this class. They were apparently designed either to be suspended above an open fire, or to rest in a stove-cover perforated for their reception. To serve the purpose of a lid hollow stoppers, like No. 4, were used. The lower part of the vessels is undecorated. The flat-bottomed pitcher and bowl, Nos. 2 and 5, are especially worthy of attention for their decoration. The light red body of the former is covered with a dark chocolate ground-color, in which the design appears in white—a mingling of the star, circle, and chain{412} pattern. Other varieties are seen in the pieces (Fig. 386) from Senhor Barboza’s collection. On the left is a caldron, flat-bottomed and with side rings. The greater part of its ornamentation has been worn away. The remaining three pieces are supposed to have been used for carrying liquids, and that on the right has, besides the rings on the body, perforated ears immediately below the lip. The decoration of the small round-bottomed pichet consists of incised lines. The long-necked bottle is ornamented in colors, in regard to the arrangement of which the piece may be taken as representing a large class of vessels in which the decoration—consisting of squares, the larger containing the smaller—is arranged vertically. The art is of the same order as the geometrical designs and concentric circles of Phoenicia and early Greece. We find it again in the shallow ladles (Fig. 387), notably in that on the right, which was found near St. Sebastian, Cuzco, in 1820.

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Fig. 386.—Peruvian Pottery. (Senhor Barboza Coll.)
Fig. 386.—Peruvian Pottery. (Senhor Barboza Coll.)

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Fig. 387.—Peruvian Pottery. (Barboza Coll.)
Fig. 387.—Peruvian Pottery. (Barboza Coll.)

On these pieces yellow is combined with the red, white, brown, and black we have hitherto met. A yet richer palette was brought to the decoration of the flat circular bottle (Fig. 388), the upper part of which is painted upon the red paste in black, white, green, and purple lines.{413}

As to the processes to which the Peruvians resorted, Marryat quotes a passage from Southey’s “History of Brazil” which gives a little light. “The Tupinambas,” he says, “were in many respects an improved race. The women were skilful potters. They dried their vessels in the sun, then inverted them, and covered them with dry bark, to which they set fire, and thus baked them sufficiently. Many of the American tribes carried this art to great perfection. There are some who bury their dead in jars large enough to receive them erect.

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Fig. 388.—Peruvian Pottery. (Barboza Coll.)
Fig. 388.—Peruvian Pottery. (Barboza Coll.)

“The Tupinambas, by means of some white liquid, glazed the inside of their vessels so well, that it is said that the potters in France could not do it better. The outside was generally finished with less care. Those, however, in which they kept their food were frequently painted in scrolls and flourishes, intricately intertwisted and nicely executed, but after no pattern; nor could they copy what they had once produced. This earthen-ware was in common use; and De Lery observes that in this respect the savages were better furnished than those persons in his own country who fed from trenchers and wooden bowls.” Other Indian tribes used water-colors after burning, and also a vegetable varnish. How far these customs extended we cannot define by geographical limits. It shows the tendency of this people, already remarked in the Peruvians, to making beauty subservient to use. An inside glaze in connection with a rough exterior is something rarely to be found elsewhere. That the Peruvians used moulds is almost certain. Mr. Hartt is of the opinion that many of their vessels were moulded in two parts and then luted together, and that some of the moulds were made from natural objects. He also suggests that the mould was sometimes made from a pattern vessel, and then baked.{414}

To conclude as to Peru, its ceramics may yet be more fully and systematically studied. At present it is instructive to remark how, on the assumption of its art being original and not derivative, it sought expression in ways so nearly identical with those of the Old World. A theory of chronology cannot, in the present condition of our knowledge, be constructed. The works passed in review evidently belong to epochs far apart from each other, and probably to different branches of the people inhabiting Peru. Some of the specimens are undoubtedly very old, and others, including the painted wares, cannot be ascribed to a very remote era. The head of Ruminhauy cannot be referred to a more distant date than the middle of the sixteenth century, and the modern work, though inferior to that we have noticed, is too closely allied to it, in composition and the style of decoration, for us to feel justified in according to much of the older painted pottery a greater age than two or three hundred years.

Of modern Brazil we would expect much, if we take its ruler, the indefatigable and enlightened Dom Pedro, as a representative of his people. Our knowledge is extremely meagre. In an otherwise admirable section at the Centennial Exhibition, the pottery was of little consequence. The best works were unglazed terra-cottas, Greek in form, and decorated with Greek subjects. There were also some vases of red clay representing native Brazilian forms decorated with reliefs, medallions, and faces, in light-brown clay. In others the colors{415} were reversed, the light brown clay forming the body and the red the ornaments. Some of the better specimens are now in the Smithsonian Institute, at Washington.

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Fig. 391.—Modern Brazilian Pottery.
Fig. 391.—Modern Brazilian Pottery.

Of the ancient Brazilian pottery Mr. Thomas Ewbank describes a basin (Fig. 389) in the Rio Museum. It is made presumably by hand, as no marks of the wheel are observable, of a grayish yellow clay imperfectly burned, covered with a light and poor kind of glazing, and is overrun by minute cracks. It is colored inside and out with red, yellow, and brown. The outside was black with smoke, and suggests that the vessel may have been used as a pot or caldron. The decoration consists of a dark-red band just below the rim, and a tangled mass of lines and dots. Some of the tribes, and among them the Coroados of the Parahiba River, used earthen jars for the reception of the mummies of their chiefs (Fig. 390). Mr. Ewbank also gives some interesting details regarding the making and quality of modern Brazilian pottery. On one estate which he visited he found a number of female slaves engaged in making bricks and tiles. The native Brazilian gives no encouragement to foreign trade, preferring the pottery of his own country as better suited to the domestic usages{416} among which he lives. Water-vessels form the staple of the industry, entire cargoes sometimes consisting of talhas and moringues, for holding water and drinking. The large centre piece in the illustration (Fig. 391) is a talha, and may be seen in almost any Brazilian house. It will hold from ten to fifteen gallons. The four vases in the engraving, two on either side of the talha, are varieties of the same vessel. Of the drinking-vessels the most common is that called the “monkey” (Fig. 392, a). Although it holds from a gallon and a half to two gallons and a half, it is used without the intervention of a tumbler, the smaller spout being applied to the lips. In the same engraving, b, c, d, and e are table moringues, as are those at i, i. The decanter, h, is common porous earthen-ware, admirably suited for keeping its contents cool. The ewer and basin, f and g, are highly colored earthen-ware from Bahia, and between them stands an Indian moringue of ingenious construction. It is filled from the bottom by means of the tube marked by a dotted line. The cup-like vessel at k is one of the ordinary kind of censers.

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Fig. 392.—Modern Brazilian Pottery.
Fig. 392.—Modern Brazilian Pottery.

{417}

To show that the Peruvians did not necessarily use mineral colors for their pottery, Mr. W. H. Edwards’s description of the processes he found among the wild tribes on the Amazon may be referred to. Their colors were of the simplest kind: indigo blue, black from the juice of the mandioca, green from another plant, and red and yellow from clays. A small kind of palm was made into a brush to apply the pigments. The designs consisted of squares, circles, and rudely drawn figures. A resinous gum was rubbed over the vessels after they had been warmed, and answered all the purposes of a glaze.

Before leaving the South American continent attention may be directed to a single specimen from Colombia. It is (Fig. 393) an unpainted bowl of corrugated ware, and is of importance to the present inquiry, as belonging, apparently, to a class of pottery of which examples have been found in many parts of the North American continent. These will be treated of hereafter.{418}

CHAPTER II.
CENTRAL AMERICA.

PASSING the Isthmus we reach the archaeological wonderland comprising Central America and Mexico. It is not improbable that there was an early connection between the ancient occupants of these regions and the South Americans. As they appear to us in their architectural remains, however, there is little beyond the grandeur common to their undertakings to suggest affinity. At the time of the Conquest the natives of the Isthmus had undoubtedly relations with Peru. It was there that Balboa and the more successful Pizarro first heard anything definite of that country. On Pizarro’s second attempt to reach the rumored land of gold, he met one of the Peruvian balsas laden with textile fabrics, silver mirrors, vases, and general merchandise. It is curious to find Mr. Squier describing the same primitive craft in the Gulf of Guayaquil, more than three hundred and fifty years later. These rafts could hardly have been used for distant voyages, but were apparently the means of carrying on a coast trade between Peru and the north. The inhabitants of the Isthmus had a tolerably{419} intimate acquaintance with Peru, and Balboa, according to Mr. Baldwin, gained clear information in regard to that country from natives who had evidently seen it. From this it may be inferred that the intercourse between the two peoples was sufficiently close to account for any similarity between the pottery belonging to Central America and that of Peru.

Passing northward through Costa Rica, where many specimens have been found, we reach Nicaragua. Dr. J. F. Bransford, U. S. N., exhumed from the graves on Ometepec Island, in Lake Nicaragua, a number of very interesting relics, which are now in the Smithsonian Institution. They are especially worthy of study as having been discovered in different deposits marked by successive layers of volcanic matter. One of the oldest (Fig. 394) was taken from a grave below the low-water level of the lake. Making due allowance for the fact that the lake lies in a region dotted in every direction with volcanoes, the grave and its contents must still possess a very respectable antiquity. Generally the old burying-grounds occupy elevated sites. The design resembles the double cross, and is graved in the paste. A similar style of decoration appears on another vase (Fig. 395) from the same district. The red clay is covered with a creamy enamel, overrun with incised lines. These are carried round the body in two bands of three lines each, and are otherwise disposed over the surface without any apparent method in the arrangement. The colors found upon many of the Peruvian vessels, red, creamy buff, and black, are seen upon the tripod (Fig.{420} 396), also from Ometepec. Whatever may have been the purpose for which this vessel was employed, its use was not confined to Ometepec. At Gueguetenango, in Guatemala, Mr. Stephens found one of polished ware of the same general design. It was taken from a vault containing bones, under a religious—probably a sacrificial—pyramidal structure. The specimen from Ometepec was found in a grave.

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Fig. 397.—Burial Urns from Ometepec.
Fig. 397.—Burial Urns from Ometepec.

The urns of the ancient Nicaraguans are generally of one shape (Fig. 397), and have been found containing both ashes and unburned bones. Terra-cotta vessels of all kinds, some of them painted, have been dug up both within and beyond the bounds of the cemeteries. They occasionally take the form of men (Fig. 398) and animals.

The present inhabitants are skilful potters. They follow methods of decorating practically identical with those of the Brazilians, and such as they have been acquainted with for at least three centuries. The wheel is unknown among them. Colors and a kind of glaze are both brought into requisition.

The old inhabitants of Guatemala have left clay idols and urns. One of the former, from Santa Cruz del Quiche, and here given in front and profile (Fig. 399), is{421} hollow, very hard and smooth. It is said to be the image of Cabuahuil, one of the old deities of the country. From the same district come the terra-cotta heads (Fig. 400), one of which—that on the left—is hollow, and the other is solid. They are well polished and extremely hard.

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Profile of Figure. Fig. 399.—Terra-cotta Hollow Figure, from Santa Cruz del Quiche, Guatemala.
Profile of Figure.
Fig. 399.—Terra-cotta Hollow Figure, from Santa Cruz del Quiche, Guatemala.

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Fig. 400.—Terra-cotta Heads, from Santa Cruz del Quiche, Guatemala.
Fig. 400.—Terra-cotta Heads, from Santa Cruz del Quiche, Guatemala.

Resembling the burial urns of Ometepec is one taken from a mound at Gueguetenango (Fig. 401). The chief differences are the handle and a decoration in relief on the unpolished surface. It was accompanied by a vase or cup (Fig. 402) of polished ware tastefully decorated with bands and a graved design.

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Fig. 401.—Vase found at Gueguetenango, Guatemala.
Fig. 401.—Vase found at Gueguetenango, Guatemala.

Over this entire region, extending from Nicaragua to Mexico, and only partially explored, there are evidences of successive changes having taken place between{422} the Spanish conquest and a remote antiquity. As in Peru, dates are purely conjectural. Epochs are marked by broad divisions, such as make it clear that the changes which took place were deeply felt. History, properly so called, gives us but little aid. We are told of a time when the Chichimecs inhabited the country—a rude, ignorant people, classed as aboriginal. The name Chichimecs is applied to all savage tribes. They may have been either the original inhabitants of the country, or wanderers from the Peruvian centre of civilization, from which they had been separated so long that they had relapsed into barbarism, or detached portions of the original settlers who travelled from the north to the south. In any event, civilization came to Central America with the Colhuas, who introduced the arts and industries, and left the grandest monuments to be found in that strange land. Who were the Colhuas? and whence did they come? No positive answer can be returned to these questions, and that is selected which appears most reasonable, viz., that they came by sea from the northern parts of South America. Tradition points in this direction. After the Colhuas the Toltecs arrived, and reduced their predecessors to subjection at a suppositious epoch, B.C. 1000. For some reason or other, possibly on account of both internal disorganization and attack from without, the Toltec power is said to have decayed a few centuries{423} before the Aztecs appear on the scene. Several hundred years later (1519) Cortez arrived, and the results marking Pizarro’s conquest of Peru followed in Mexico. That the Aztecs were a people of great intelligence cannot reasonably be doubted; that they equalled their Toltec or Colhuan predecessors may be questioned. All the evidence goes to show that they went upward from the South, where they had existed as a semi-civilized tribe, and that, on reaching the seat of the Toltecs, they subjugated them, and availed themselves, to the best of their ability, of all the knowledge and attainments with which conquest brought them in contact. The beginnings of Central American civilization are buried in an antiquity which even to the Aztecs was remote. To measure it, we must bear in mind that forests grow upon the ruins of cities which were as inaccessible to the Aztecs as they are to the modern explorer, and that the science and art of which they are the monuments must have required many centuries to develop.

We have already glanced at a few of the ancient settlements on the Pacific slope. The remains found among the ruins of Yucatan and the entire sweep of country between the Sierra Madre and the Gulf and Caribbean Sea were also taken from the tombs. They are usually of a red paste, and present an endless variety of form and, if those found together are contemporaneous, an equally wide range of taste. Of the leading cities it is necessary to mention only Quirigua, Copan, and Palenque. Of these the first named is considered the most ancient, and Palenque the most modern. Copan is situated in the western part of Honduras, and many urns of the prevailing red color have been taken from the recesses of its arched tombs. At Palenque and Mitla a silico-alkaline glaze covers some of the specimens of gray earthen-ware. The shapes include grotesque images of deities and priests, and rudely modelled snakes and other animals. Found at places far apart, and presenting widely varying characteristics, these potteries admit of no classification, either by date or character.

In Central Mexico bricks were used alternatively with stone for facing the gigantic pyramidal mounds which there abound. The Tlascalans, who aided Cortez in his war upon Montezuma, burned their bricks.

At Palenque, farther to the south, the ceramic remains are of a higher artistic order. At the risk of invading the domain of architecture,{424} we may mention the stucco or plaster figures with which the buildings were embellished. In other places were statuettes, one of which is described as “made of baked clay, very hard, and the surface smooth, as if coated with enamel.” At Mitla we again meet with the phenomenon which we found so strange in Peru—the association of two entirely different orders of art, the most magnificent architecture and exquisite inlaid decoration with rude paintings of the figures of idols. The knowledge of coloring materials is nowhere better illustrated than in Yucatan, where red, yellow, blue, green, and brown appear in the wall-paintings. We find the pottery of Nicaragua compared with that of Mexico and Peru, but far more enthusiastic language was employed by the Spaniards in regard to what they saw. Cortez, in 1520, compared the pottery of Tlascala with the best of Spanish manufacture, and Herrera finds in Faenza ware the best parallel with that of Chulula.

Should farther explorations be made of the cities buried by the forests which have sprung up around the ruins we have indicated, a more connected history of the ceramics of the entire region may be written. At present one is liable to be lost in conjecture, and to launch into speculations such as that which very plausibly attributes to Central America a civilization the most ancient in the world.{425}

CHAPTER III.
THE MOUND-BUILDERS.

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Fig. 403.—Mound-builders’ Vases, from Southern Missouri. Centre piece, height, 9 inches. (Mrs. J. V. L. Pruyn Coll.)
Fig. 403.—Mound-builders’ Vases, from Southern Missouri. Centre piece, height, 9 inches. (Mrs. J. V. L. Pruyn Coll.)

IN the central part of the North American continent, along the valleys of the Mississippi and the Ohio, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes, the land was, in a very remote age, settled by a people akin to those of Mexico and Central America. Their name is now unknown, and to designate them they are, from the great mounds of earth which they have left, called “Mound-builders.” Whence they came or whither they went is unknown. It is conjectured that they are the same people whom we have called Toltecs; that therefore they passed up from the south, and then, in course of ages, deserted their northern settlements on the incursion from the north-west of the Asiatic tribes known as North American Indians. It is surmised that they were then in part absorbed by the invaders of their lands, and that they in part sought refuge in the south, whence they had{426} issued centuries before. Their long absence had given them all the appearance of a distinct people. The evidence in favor of these several surmises may be condensed into the following form:—

That the mounds of North America were intended apparently for both religious and defensive purposes, and are practically identical with those of Central America;

That their most populous settlements were in the southern part of the Mississippi valley, whence they passed upward until they reached and overspread the valley of the Ohio;

That, according to old books and traditions, the Toltecs reached Central America from the north-east;

That the reason given for the Toltecs deserting their settlements in the north-east, designated Huehue-Tlapalan, was the successive attacks of Chichimecs. We have already seen that the name Chichimecs was applied to all barbarians, and would in this case point to the North American Indians.

The question is an important one, since in the above view the Mound-builders would, as we shall hereafter see, form the link connecting the ancient people of South and Central America with the pottery-making Indians of our own time in New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona.

Now and again new discoveries are made which act as stimuli to fresh researches. A few months ago a terra-cotta tablet covered with written characters was reported to have been brought to light in Stoddard County, Missouri. It was said to bear the appearance of having been impressed with its undecipherable characters while the clay was still damp, to have then been hardened and glazed. A hint is all that is needed to originate speculation. We can turn to the terra-cotta tablets of Assyria and ask if there is{427} no connection between them and this Missouri relic, and if the partially submerged continent in mid-Atlantic of old writers is really mythical. Such a hint was dropped at the time of the discovery. It might possibly be better to compare the tablet with some of the inscriptions of Central America. It concerns us more at present to find that the Mound-builders used sun-dried bricks in rearing their giant structures. In the Lower Mississippi and along the Gulf these bricks appear to have been generally employed to strengthen the embankments. One in Mississippi is described as having a supporting wall of “sun-dried brick two feet thick, filled with grass, rushes, and leaves.” On some appears the impress of human hands. As to their pottery, it may be said in general terms to compare well with that of the South Americans. In the Peabody Museum at Harvard, an extensive collection has been brought together. Some of the vases are admirably finished, and of good design. Others are quaintly designed, but somewhat rudely worked, and would appear to indicate that fictile art had little attraction for that people. We have seen numberless specimens showing a partiality even in the humblest vessels for imitations of animal and human forms. Examples of this and other kinds are given in the preceding illustrations.

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Fig. 407.—Mound-builders’ Vases.
Fig. 407.—Mound-builders’ Vases.

From a comparison of the pottery of the Mound-builders with that{428} of South and Central America, the conclusion will be inevitably reached that the view already taken of the migrations of the former people is correct. Between the ruder works of the two peoples there is often a striking and close resemblance. To this class belongs a great deal of the pottery of the Mound-builders to be seen in collections. Among them we find nothing equal to the best Peruvian art; but in the details of decoration and the tendency of the potter toward certain typical forms, specimens may be discovered such as we might expect from a nation composed of emigrants, and far removed from the centre where the rudiments of their art were acquired.{429}

CHAPTER IV.
INDIAN POTTERY.

AFTER the Mound-builders came the Indians. A distinction must be observed between the real North American Indians and those tribes in New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona, of whose pottery specimens belonging to the present day have been obtained. It is clear that whether or not the Mound-builders and Toltecs were the same people, the former had no affinity of race with the Indians. They were undoubtedly an American race, while the Indians were as undoubtedly Asiatic, for whom no ancestry can with any show of reason be traced to the Mound-builders. Were the resemblance between the Indians and the nomadic tribes of Siberia beyond Behring Strait to be set aside as proving nothing, we should yet have the tradition common to many tribes pointing to a north-western source, to fall back upon in disposing of the question of the origin of the red man. We may, therefore, leave him out of farther present consideration, and turn to the successors of the Mound-builders.

Professor O. C. Marsh in a recent lecture touched upon this point, and at the same time hinted at a possible community of race among all the ancient peoples of America. “On the Columbia River,” he said, “I have found evidence of the former existence of inhabitants much superior to the Indians at present there, and of which no tradition remains. Among many stone carvings which I saw, there were a{430} number of heads which so strongly resemble those of apes that the likeness at once suggests itself. Whence came these sculptures, and by whom were they made? Another fact that has interested me very much is the strong resemblance between the skulls of the typical Mound-builders of the Mississippi valley and those of the Pueblo Indians. I had long been familiar with the former, and when I recently saw the latter, it required the positive assurance of a friend who had himself collected them in New Mexico to convince me that they were not from the mounds. In a large collection of Mound-builders’ pottery, over a thousand specimens which I have recently examined with some care, I found many pieces of elaborate workmanship so nearly like the ancient water-jars from Peru, that no one could fairly doubt that some intercourse had taken place between the widely separated people that made them.”

According to this view the Mound-builders would have a relationship with the Peruvians on the one hand, and with the Pueblos on the other. When the Mound-builders retreated from their upper settlements, they maintained for some years their occupancy of territory along the lower Mississippi, before finally retiring toward the south. It is hardly possible that they disappeared en masse before the invaders, or that those lingering behind the main body should have been utterly exterminated. It would be difficult in that case to account for such exceptional Indian tribes as the Natchez and Mandan. Both tribes were skilful workers in clay. The Natchez, at the time when the West was first opened up by Europeans, over three hundred years ago, were making pottery comparable with that of Europe. They found the requisite clay on the banks of the Mississippi, and were acquainted with the use of color. The Mandans employed earthen-ware in their households, almost as extensively as any modern people. They baked pots in such a way that they were as capable of resisting the action of heat as the metal utensils of the present day. These were hung over the fire for purposes of cooking and numberless other articles of earthen-ware were seen in their lodges. The Mandans were making pottery on the upper Missouri forty-five years ago, and probably continued doing so until a late date.

The Pueblos of New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona present us with another problem, which can only be solved by one of two suppositions,{431} either that they are the descendants of emigrants from Central America who degenerated through contact and association with Indians, or that they represent a remnant of the Mound-builders who sought in the west the security which the main body of their countrymen found in the south. We shall find additional reason hereafter for believing that if there was no extensive amalgamation of the races, the Indians at least borrowed some of the customs of their predecessors. If it be well understood that the ancient occupants of the territory extending from the mouth of the Mississippi northward and westward to Arizona had a common origin, and that their victorious barbarian successors were in certain districts modified by absorption, such facts as a similarity between the pottery of Louisiana or Illinois and Colorado need not be received with either hesitation or bewilderment. And, besides, the historical necessity for ascribing it to a specific age is thereby materially lessened.

The Pueblos, or Village Indians, of New Mexico and Arizona have left many interesting pieces of earthen-ware, and many others of the present time come from the same section. There is abundant proof that this entire district was inhabited at a very ancient date, and the relics of successive degrees of civilization are found in the ruins. El Moro, in New Mexico, was visited by Lieutenant Simpson in 1849, and afterward by Lieutenant Whipple. Pottery was found painted in zones and wavy lines, and occasionally highly polished. Following the same parallel westward, Lieutenant Whipple discovered other ruins to which no age could be ascribed, although some were clearly more ancient than others, indicating that the region must have been inhabited throughout a long series of years. More pottery was collected, brightly colored, and painted after patterns resembling those noticed at El Moro. The paintings occasionally assumed the forms of animals and insects. Still farther to the west, at Zuni, and at places beyond it in the same direction, the examples of the ceramic work of the early inhabitants multiplied. Sun-dried bricks were found to have been employed in building, and in addition to painted pottery, an older indented kind was met with.

An extended exploration of the same region, but somewhat farther north, was made in 1875, under the auspices of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. Mr. W. H.{432} Holmes and Mr. W. H. Jackson subsequently presented notices of the results of their examinations of the ancient ruins within an area of six thousand square miles, chiefly in Colorado, but partially also in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. Their joint evidence regarding the immense quantities of fragmentary pottery seen in the course of their explorations must create great astonishment. In speaking of the ruins of a village in New Mexico, situated on the Rio de la Plata, about twenty-five miles above its junction with the San Juan, Mr. Holmes says, “The soil was literally full of fragments of painted and ornamented pottery.” Near the same locality, and while riding through a desert-like district, he observed “fragments of pottery strewed around,” and “on the high dry table-lands, on all sides, fragments of pottery were picked up.” Writing of the Montezuma caÑon in Utah, Mr. Jackson says, “As the valley widened it was dotted in many places with mounds thickly strewed over with the ever-accompanying ceramic handiwork of the ancient people in whose footsteps we are following, and occurring so frequently and of such extent as to excite astonishment at the numbers this narrow valley supported.” The same writer says, “All who have ever visited this region, which extends from the Rio Grande to the Colorado and southward to the Gila, have been impressed with the vast quantities of shattered pottery scattered over the whole land, sometimes where not even a ruin now remains, its more enduring nature enabling it to long outlive all other specimens of their handiwork.”

The presence of such immense quantities of fragmentary pottery can possibly be explained upon the hypothesis that the vessels were liable to fracture when exposed to the fire, and that those cracking under the heat were thrown away when taken out of the primitive and open kiln.{433}

The specimens obtained, both fragmentary and entire, give abundant opportunity for studying the processes and decoration of these old-time potters. As illustrating the fertility of their talent for shaping and ornamenting their wares, Mr. Holmes observes that on one occasion, when encamped in the Mancos CaÑon, he found, within a space of ten feet square, fragments of fifty-five different vessels, and adds that, “in shape these vessels have been so varied that few forms known to civilized art could not be found.” The clay varies according to locality, in some cases being of an apparently fine quality mixed with sand and shells, and in others coarse and more friable. All this old pottery was made by hand, and fired, although no remains of kilns have been discovered.

The smaller pieces, such as cups and jars, are usually covered with a peculiar thin, hard, and smooth glaze or enamel, and then painted. The larger pieces, which apparently answered the purpose of the Egyptian amphora, present a rough, corrugated surface, are seldom glazed and never painted. A specimen of the latter class, found among the dÉbris in one of the cliff-houses of the Mancos in Colorado, is given in the illustration (Fig. 408). Its rough exterior is to be attributed to the process of making. The potter began by drawing the clay into strips, and then commencing at the bottom, wound the strips spirally and pressed each layer down upon that below it, indenting the outside with a stick or with his thumb. The illustration (Fig. 409) may serve to elucidate the method of construction. The inside{434} is perfectly smooth, and so well are the strips worked together, that they show no division on fracture. An attempt was made at decoration or variety, by running the strips a few times round without indenting them and by attaching scrolls or spirals immediately below the neck. All the pottery of this description is ancient. A jar of similar construction to the above, but of a better shape, was found in Epsom Creek, Utah (Fig. 410). The fragment of a handle (Fig. 411) would appear to indicate that the ancients were familiar with the well-known cable pattern of modern porcelain manufacturers. It is made by twisting together three rolls of clay. A ladle (Fig. 412) and what seems to have been a pipe (Fig. 413) will tend to show farther the extent of the resources of the aboriginal potters of the west.

enlarge-image
Fig. 417.—(Entire).
Fig. 417.—(Entire). Fig. 418.—(Restored). Fig. 419.—(Restored). Fig. 420.—(Fragment).

enlarge-image
Fig. 421.—(Extended to show Pattern).
Fig. 421.—(Extended to show Pattern).

In the specimens of their painted pottery we have the best means of judging their art. The painting is generally black laid upon the white enamel or glaze; and however the color was obtained, it was very durable. Although the fragments, as we have seen, have lain on the ground exposed to the action of the weather for at least several centuries, the color, in very few cases, shows any symptom of decay. In one piece the white ground has actually worn away, leaving the black decoration in relief. The designs show a vast amount of ingenuity on the part of the artists. They are nearly all modifications of the fret and scrolls. A very common style (Fig. 414) consists of a series of enclosed squares, the alternate borders being composed of crossed lines and straight lines, and having undecorated bands between. A remarkably fine specimen (Fig. 415), both{435} in shape and the simplicity of its decoration, was taken from a grave on the banks of the San Juan, near the mouth of the Mancos. Its excellent form, and the throwing of the classical fret round the widest part of the body, bear witness to an artistic sentiment of considerable refinement. The artists of the time appear to have chiefly directed their attention to tasteful combinations of lines in triangular, rectangular, and other odd forms, in which the two latter are united or conjoined with straight bands of color. A fine specimen (Fig. 416) was found in a heap of rubbish at a cave ruin on the De Chelly. Its perfectly rotund form argues a skill in manipulating the clay which one can hardly conceive possible without the assistance of the wheel. For the purpose of farther illustrating the decorations and shapes, a few fragments are presented in a restored and extended form (Figs. 417-420). In nearly every case the decoration is on the inside of the vessel, sometimes covering the entire surface, but more frequently taking the form of a band round the lip; when it appears on the outside, it generally consists of a narrower band (Fig. 422). It will be observed that, so far, we have not met{436} with a single attempt at decoration by painting animal or floral forms. Mr. W. H. Jackson says that only one fragment has been found exemplifying such a style (Fig. 423). It was found in the upper caÑon of the Montezuma, and has the figure painted on the inside. A rudely modelled frog on the outside of a fragment of a cup (Fig. 424) is from the same district. In this case the ornamentation is in relief on the outside.

It would be interesting to inquire if the modern Moquis of Tegua are the degenerate descendants of the ancient inhabitants of the cave-dwellings and cliff houses of the valleys of the San Juan and its tributaries. The probabilities are in favor of such a supposition, just as the semi-civilized dwellers in modern Zuni are the descendants of the old Pueblos. There are evidences of decay scattered throughout the entire region.

In architecture the inhabitants of the present day are certainly inferior to their old-time predecessors, and in the ceramic art there is a similar decadence. A very peculiar and altogether exceptional piece (Fig. 425) was found by Mr. W. H. Jackson among the Moquis of Tegua, about which its possessors could give him no information. He concluded that it had been made at Zuni by the Pueblos, and a color of probability is lent to this supposition by the fact, previously noted, that the Pueblos of Zuni make use of insect and animal forms in decorating their pottery. The specimen mentioned is evidently of modern manufacture. The upper part is white, the lower red, and the figures are red and black. More nearly resembling, although far inferior to, the ancient works is a piece (Fig. 426) made by the Moquis of Tegua. The decoration is after the ancient type, but more crowded and complicated, and covers both the inside and the outside of the vessel. It is a fair example of the modern work, of which two{437} further examples are given (Figs. 427 and 428).

The modern Pueblos are exceptional both for the comparative excellence of their work, and by reason of the fact that they make pottery for the purposes of trade, as well as for their own use. This appears from Gregg’s work, published about twenty-five years ago, entitled “Commerce of the Prairies.” The author says: “They manufacture, according to their aboriginal art, both for their own consumption and for the purpose of traffic, a species of earthen-ware not much inferior to the coarse pottery of our common potters. The pots made of this material stand fire remarkably well, and are the universal substitutes for all the purposes of cookery, even among the Mexicans, for the iron castings of this country, which are utterly unknown there. Rude as this crockery is, it nevertheless evinces a great deal of skill, considering that it is made entirely without lathe or any kind of machinery. It is often fancifully painted with colored earths and the juice of a plant called guaco, which brightens by burning.”

To revert for a moment to Professor Marsh’s remarks, there appears to be abundant reason for considering a great proportion of the old pottery of America as belonging to one class, and that the old inhabitants were originally of one race. The corrugated ware which we first found in Colombia reappears among the Pueblo Indians, and has also been found in Utah. The Indians made it in New Jersey, Pennsylvania,{438} Delaware, Georgia, Florida, and District of Columbia, having probably acquired the art from their predecessors. Professor Rau says it was widely known in North America, and Mr. Hartt shows the wide spread of the practice of coiling throughout South America. The latter states upon authority that the tribes on the Araguaya River all coil, using the hand, water, and a bamboo trowel. The same process is found among the tribes of the Orinoco section. The red and dark brown painted ware we have traced from Peru to Nicaragua, and thence to the Moqui settlements. The Moquis of Arizona make great numbers of the shallow ladles with short handles terminating in animals’ heads, similar to those of Peru. We have seen the Brazilians and Moquis both using vegetable colors on pottery, and it is probably only our ignorance of Peruvian and Central American methods which hinders our tracing these processes back to antiquity. It is difficult upon any other hypothesis than that of a community of race to explain these facts. We have said that the Moquis may be descendants of Mound-builders seeking safety in the west. They may also have come directly from the south, and having passed the country lying between the Gulf of Mexico and the Sierra Madre, have reached the Colorado River, along the upper affluents of which their settlements extend.

An interesting discovery was made some years ago by Mr. Charles Rau on the Cahokia Creek in Illinois, in the rich alluvial strip of land known as the “American Bottom.” He there found the place where pottery had been made by some former inhabitants, and saw the clay-pit, and the heaps of shells to be ground or broken and mixed with the clay. The vessels were all round-bottomed, and do not appear to have differed much in shape from those of the San Juan Valley. The painting deserves particular notice. It was laid upon the outside so as to cover it, and sometimes on both sides, and in either black, dark brown, or a beautiful red, only one color being used on each article. “It is evident that the coloring preceded the process of baking, and the surfaces thus coated are smooth and shining, the paint replacing to a certain extent the enamel produced by glazing.” Covering the entire surface with one color does not suggest much ingenuity, but on the pieces where incised lines and indentations form the decoration, there are fuller evidences of artistic feeling. The lines were either{439} drawn straight round the vessels, or formed zigzags or figures of greater or less simplicity. Without insisting upon any relationship between the potters of the Cahokia and the Mound-builders, Mr. Rau believes the pottery he found to be equal to that taken from the mounds of the Mississippi valley. Some of the unpainted vessels were made in basket moulds, and other remains, such as the fragment of a toy canoe, show that modelling was practised to some extent. The age of this pottery is left to conjecture.

The same writer quotes from Dumont, who wrote about a century and a quarter ago, a description of the method of making earthen-ware adopted by the inhabitants of the large tract of country then called Louisiana. The passage is here given in full: “After having amassed the proper kind of clay and carefully cleaned it, the Indian women take shells which they pound and reduce to a fine powder; they mix this powder with the clay, and having poured some water on the mass, they knead it with their hands and feet, and make it into a paste, of which they form rolls six or seven feet long and of a thickness suitable to their purpose. If they intend to fashion a plate or a vase, they take hold of one of these rolls by the end, and fixing here with the thumb of the left hand the centre of the vessel they are about to make, they turn the roll with astonishing quickness around this centre, describing a spiral line; now and then they dip their fingers into water and smooth with the right hand the inner and outer surface of the vase they intend to fashion, which would become ruffled or undulated without that manipulation. In this manner they make all sorts of earthen vessels, plates, dishes, bowls, pots, and jars, some of which hold from forty to fifty pints. The burning of this pottery does not cause them much trouble. Having dried it in the shade, they kindle a large fire, and when they have a sufficient quantity of embers, they clean a space in the middle, where they deposit their vessels and cover them with charcoal. Thus they bake their earthen-ware, which can now be exposed to the fire, and possesses as much durability as ours. Its solidity is doubtless to be attributed to the pulverized shells which the women mix with the clay.” It will be observed that this is practically the same method of construction described by Messrs. Jackson and Holmes as existing in the San Juan valley.{440}

In a valuable paper upon “The Stone Age in New Jersey,” by Dr. C. C. Abbott, of Trenton, and published in the report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1875, much interesting information is given of the Indian pottery of that State. Dr. Abbott describes a small round vase with flaring rim, decorated before firing with lines roughly made with a pointed stick. He then gives a caution which it is well to bear in mind when examining the pottery comprehensively styled Indian. The vase is in size similar to those found in western mounds, but less carefully ornamented. Difference in decoration is not, however, always a safe test to apply in order to distinguish the pottery of the Mound-builders from that of the Indians. “In gracefulness of outline the New Jersey vase is the equal of that of the Mound-builders, while we have seen a drawing of a large vase found in Vermont which exceeds in elaborateness of detail any figured by Messrs. Squier and Davis. The Mound-builders were never inhabitants of what is now known as New Jersey nor of the State of Vermont, but pottery is sometimes found in these sections the equals in some instances of the pottery of the west in style of decoration, while in all cases it is as hard and durable.” A pipe, the bowl of which slopes outward and with the underside of the stem flattened, is also described by Dr. Abbott. It is made of fine yellow clay. A fragment of another pipe with a quadrangular bowl was made of the paste generally used by the Indians, a mixture of clay, mica, and shells. Some of the fragments of pottery are curiously marked with dots and lines. In one case a spear of grass had been employed to make bead-like studs in rows on the surface.

A discovery was made a few years ago in Tennessee, by which we learn something of the Indian processes (Dr. J. F. Wright on “Antiquities of Tennessee,” Smithsonian Report, 1874). It consisted of an excavation six or eight feet in diameter, and four or five feet deep, and was apparently a kiln or oven for baking pottery. Unwrought clay, charcoal, fragments of pottery, and pieces of bark more or less charred were found among the sand in the excavation. The pottery was peculiarly marked on the inside, and investigation led to the conclusion that the vessels had been moulded round an interior core of beech bark, the corrugations of which corresponded exactly with the impressions on the pottery. The Maryland Indians (Paper by O. N.{441} Bryan, Smithsonian Report, 1874) are thought to have baked some of their pottery in nets.

Many others of the Indian tribes practised the fictile art, very few, so far as is known, being entirely ignorant of it. Moulding in clay was not, however, a practice likely to commend itself or to offer any attractions to the nomadic red man, and it fell into desuetude, whenever the introduction of metal utensils rendered its continued pursuit not absolutely necessary. Some of the tribes which followed the buffalo possibly never engaged in it, but left the practice to their corn-raising brethren (Dr. W. E. Doyle on “Indian Forts and Dwellings,” Smithsonian Report, 1876). The exceptional tribes of New Mexico and Arizona, which cannot, as already pointed out, be identified with the North American Indians, are chief among the few which still continue to make pottery. We have seen that they adhere in a great measure to the ancient shapes and primitive decorative patterns. The fact of chief importance in connection with the old potters of the West and the processes to which they resorted is their employment of a glaze. It is considered by Dr. Emil Bessels as the most striking peculiarity of the pottery found near the ruins. It is regular, very hard, sometimes opaque and whitish, at others transparent and tinged with blue. Neither this glaze nor the colors have been accurately analyzed, but of the latter the reddish-brown and brown are undoubtedly mineral, derived from iron and manganese. The black was probably an organic substance, such as charcoal made into a pigment by being mixed with fine clay.{442}

CHAPTER V.
UNITED STATES.

WE now approach the potters and artists of the present day. That there is a brilliant future in store for the ceramic art of America may be inferred from the rapidity with which it has been pushed forward to the stage it has already reached. With a limitless wealth of material at his command, and gifted with enterprise, originality, and taste, the American artist can look confidently forward to taking his place beside the best the world has produced.

And here it may be profitable to consider some of the obstacles in his way. The first of these is commercial. With a high protective tariff the home manufacturer is barely enabled to compete with the foreign producer in plain domestic wares. The import duty does not cover the greater expense of working in this country. Statistics show that in the items of labor and material the American manufacturer, as compared with the European, labors under a disadvantage of about one hundred per cent. In works of art this disadvantage is vastly increased. The makers of the tariff draw a distinction of only ten per cent. between white granite and decorated porcelain, or, in other words, they give the makers of artistic porcelain protection greater by twenty-five per cent. than that accorded the makers of granite. A distinction to the extent of five per cent. is drawn in the tariff between undecorated and decorated porcelain and parian. Art work, therefore, is benefited to the extent of one-ninth more than plain goods of the{443} same material. It need not be pointed out that art is thus protected less than workmanship, since the proportionate cost of artistic work, as compared with skilled and unskilled labor, is far greater here than in Europe. As a consequence, there is little to induce manufacturers to turn to art unless some profit can be drawn from the reputation which it brings. It is not intended to discuss here the question of protection versus free trade. The tariff is merely brought forward to illustrate the difficulty of rearing up something worthy of being called an American art. To demonstrate this by example, here (Fig. 429) is a porcelain plate made at Greenpoint on a challenge. It is a copy of a plate now in the possession of Mr. George Such, of South Amboy, by whom it was purchased at the sale of the effects of Louis Philippe. The original is from SÈvres, and is decorated chiefly in gold. The Greenpoint copy was made in order to test the question whether it were altogether unreasonable to entertain the hope that American decoration might not—at some future day, of course—equal that of SÈvres. Those who saw both had some difficulty in distinguishing the original from the copy, and in some instances could not do so without examining the ware as well as the decoration. The copy is a remarkably fine specimen of decorative art, and would lead us to entertain great expectations regarding the work of the artist when his skill is devoted to original designs.

The challenge made was, therefore, fully answered. Should it be asked why, under these circumstances, similar work should not be done regularly, the answer is simple. The existing state of the market, in so far as the demand for American artistic work is concerned, is such that prices will barely bring back the actual cost of production. Toward lessening that cost the efforts of manufacturers must be directed; and in connection with this subject a remark may be quoted, made by President T. C. Smith at the Convention of the Potters’ Association:{444} “Foreign clays can be put down in New York tide-water cheaper than you can buy Pennsylvania clays, by about fifteen per cent.”

The great expense attending the production of works of art is not, however, the only drawback with which the American manufacturer has to contend. It may, in fact, be said that the impediments to the rapid advancement of ceramic art in America have not yet been touched upon. They consist of neither the lack of capital, enterprise, experience, nor skill.

It is a singular fact that while native manufacture advances with rapid strides, and finds on all sides a public ready to give it a hearty reception, native art must force its way to recognition. Its first honors must be won abroad. It must bear a foreign stamp to be accepted at all in the home of its birth. The cause of this is not far to find. The American market is a good market, and is so regarded by the world at large. Foreign artists send their works to it, and are sure of a welcome. Competition by a native superior is thereby made difficult; by an equal almost impossible; by an inferior, an absurdity. The foreign competitor comes branded as a genius, and home critics hesitate about issuing a verdict in favor of a countryman. They appear to have a lack of confidence in their own judgment, and would rather endorse or modify another’s opinion, than take the responsibility of issuing an independent one of their own. Patrons suffer from a similar diffidence. On the one hand they see certainty, on the other uncertainty. On this side is the work of one who has won the praise of all Europe; on the other, nothing but that of one who makes a direct appeal to their own discrimination.

Under such conditions it is difficult for an art to struggle into existence. French art is to a Frenchman the finest and best the world ever saw. Englishmen support English art because it is their own. They are satisfied with it, if all the universe should wonder what it is they nurse and cherish. It is good to them, and that is enough. If their own opinion should change, it will then have become a curiosity, and therefore doubly worthy of their care. American art may be good, even equal to the best, but unfortunately it is American. Receiving no notice, the artist loses even the benefit of criticism, and concludes that his own people compliment themselves by believing that no work of art can be produced among them.{445}

This may appear overdrawn, but the facts are eloquent. It has been said that, as a rule, Americans take a pride in their own manufactures. That of pottery is an exception. Almost anywhere granite-ware can be seen bearing as a mark the royal arms of England, with the motto in full—in this case very appropriately—honi soit qui mal y pense. It is a curious mark for an American potter, or at first sight seems so. The ware may have been made at Trenton, or anywhere else in America, and the explanation is simple. The dealers will not buy it without that mark, and first suggested its use as they would order a certain style of decoration. Inquiry among the dealers brings out the whole truth. Their customers look for the English mark, and finding it, are satisfied. After this we need not inquire if the English granite-ware is superior to the American. There is no question of superiority or inferiority, but only one of the potency of a name.

Again, in the matter of porcelain, that made and decorated in this country is sold every day for French, German, or English. It is, in fact, “all things unto all men,” according to the requirements of the purchaser and the ingenuity of the dealer. In some cases it is bought plain, and decorated, after it leaves the factory, in the various foreign styles. No objection is ever made to its appearance, its finish, purity, durability, or decoration, only it has the misfortune to be American, and its parentage must be concealed at all hazards, and even in spite of the manufacturer’s mark. Here, again, there is no question of quality, but only one of the effect of a name.

To discuss the objectionable part of misrepresentation is away from the present purpose, and the deduction from these facts is the only thing now requiring to be made. They argue that upon their merits there are wares produced in America which, if made anywhere else, would cope with the corresponding qualities now imported.

For artistic works the struggle is still harder. In their case the test is not practical, but critical. They demand taste, and not use, to be appreciated; and, as a consequence, very rarely receive the recognition to which they are entitled. Art grows slowly, and, especially in a country so largely interested in commerce as America, is long in reaching its maturity. Looking at it aright, there is all the more reason why, when it makes its appearance, it should be received with{446} warmth and treated with deferential respect, in order that its growth may be hastened and not retarded. America is, in this respect, an exception to the nations of the earth. The question may be looked at from various points of view. The patriotic course would certainly be to encourage, and not by neglect to stifle, a budding art. If the art be poor, it stands in all the greater need of encouragement, in order that, for America’s sake, it may rise to an equality with that of other countries.

In France, Germany, Prussia, Russia, Italy, China, and England, the ceramic art received the support of governments and wealthy patrons, and the result has been recorded. In America such support is neither given nor required. What is chiefly needed is appreciation. In the Republic the people are the rulers and patrons. In their hands are both power and wealth, to be used in the rearing of art, surely with as much discrimination and judgment as in the monarchies of Europe and the Orient. We might say from another stand-point that the earliest works in any branch of the arts are those of the highest value in the future. They reveal to the historian the foundations of the eminence from which he views the past, and that eminence America will undoubtedly attain. The skill now being developed, and the taste now being cultivated, are the legacy of the present generation to the next, and future attainments will be but the interest of present struggle and endeavor.

These considerations, however, are, in a certain sense, extraneous. The American artist and artist-manufacturer demand no exceptionally favorable position, nor that their works shall be viewed in any other than a fairly critical and commercial light. Prejudice in art is the end of criticism; prejudice in commerce is suicidal.

The materials for making every kind of ware are found in different parts of the country, and the industry is for that reason well distributed. As early as 1766 American clays were imported into England, captains on their return voyages often taking samples from the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Many of these reached Wedgwood, who, in allusion to one of them, says, “It will require some peculiar management to avoid the difficulties attending the use of it.” He elsewhere avows his willingness to make all necessary experiments with American clays. These trials turned out well, as we find him{447} making arrangements for a regular supply from Ayor, in the country of the Cherokees, about three hundred miles from Charleston. He desired a monopoly by patent or parliamentary grant, but ultimately sent out an agent, of whom we learn nothing more, except that he began his journey to the Cherokee deposit. In October, 1768, a cargo of Carolina clay reached Liverpool, and the trade became general both in the Cherokee and Pensacola clays, Wedgwood apparently giving the preference to the latter. What use he made of it is not precisely stated. More interesting is the fact that America contributed to Cookworthy’s invention of natural porcelain in England in 1760. It is said that an American showed Cookworthy, in 1745, specimens of both kaolin and petuntse found in Virginia, and samples of the ware made from them. Cookworthy’s own account of it is slightly different, inasmuch as lie only mentions having seen specimens of the manufactured china. He says: “I had lately with me the person who has discovered the china earth. He had with him several samples of the china ware, which I think were equal to the Asiatic. It was found on the back of Virginia, where he was in the quest of mines; and having read Du Halde, he discovered both the petuntse and the kaolin. It is this latter earth which he says is essential to the success of the manufacture. He is gone for a cargo of it, having bought from the Indians the whole country where it rises.” Mr. Cookworthy was not favorably impressed by the gentleman from Virginia, of whom no more is heard. Nor does it appear that he returned to England with the cargo, which he thought he could land there at about sixty-five dollars per ton. There is one purely American feature of the story, and that is the purchase from the Indians of “the whole country where it rises.”

The final practical effect of Mr. Cookworthy’s association with this American was the foundation of the English porcelain industry. The acknowledgment is thus made in the catalogue of the Museum of Practical Geology: “The great advance of the porcelain manufacture in England is due to the discovery of the kaolin of Cornwall by William Cookworthy, of Plymouth, about 1755. He apparently had his attention directed to the subject by an American, who showed him samples of china-stone and kaolin from Virginia, in 1745.” One hundred and thirty-two years later, the country from which the suggestion{448} came is importing kaolin from that which received and acted upon it.

New Jersey is the only State of the clay deposits of which we know much historically or have any precise information. The facts here presented are gleaned from a report issued by the State Geological Survey, and will give an idea of the value of our native clays. It is stated, on the authority of Mr. Samuel Dally, of Woodbridge, that the clay there was known to the soldiers before and during the Revolution, and that, when stationed at Perth Amboy, they called it fuller’s-earth, and used it for cleaning their buckskin breeches. In 1800 the South Amboy clay was dug for making stone-ware, and after 1812 the use of New Jersey clays for fire-bricks and other refractory materials began. Soon after 1816, Mr. Price was shipping fire-clay from Woodbridge to Boston, to be used in making fire-bricks. About 1820, Mr. Jacob Felt, of Boston, bought fifty tons of Woodbridge clay from Jeremiah Dally, at twenty-five cents per ton, and so started a regular trade, which was maintained for many years. The Woodbridge deposit is very rich, and is now extensively worked, the clay being suitable for different purposes. It can be used as fire and pipe clay, or for white-ware, and also meets the requirements of paper-makers. In 1835 the same clay was in use by Howell & Bros., Philadelphia, for satining wall-paper. Gordon, in his Gazetteer (1833), speaks of a discovery of extensive beds of white pipe-clay between Woodbridge and Amboy; but even in 1840 its extent and uses were not fully known. Coming down to 1855, we find clay for fifty millions of fire-bricks being taken from the pits at Woodbridge, Perth Amboy, and South Amboy; 2000 tons for the paper-makers; 2000 tons for making alum, and a large quantity for fine pottery. In 1868 the aggregate production had doubled. In 1874 265,000 tons of fire-clay were dug, and brought, at an estimated average price of $3 50 per ton, $927,000; 20,000 tons of South Amboy stone-ware clay, at $4 per ton, brought $80,000. These figures are sufficient for the formation of an opinion of the worth of a good clay deposit.

With regard to the materials to be obtained in this country, it may be premised that, from a vague use of words having an otherwise definite meaning, it has been difficult to obtain satisfactory information upon some of the most interesting points. The following extract is{449} taken from a report upon the pottery industry, by the secretary of the United States Pottery Association to the Industrial Directory for 1876: “The clay, or kaolin, mines of the United States have been wonderfully developed the past few years. Rich and inexhaustible beds of fine kaolin are now being worked in the following States: Delaware—three extensive deposits; Pennsylvania—three very fine mines are worked, and the whole of Chester County abounds with as fine a deposit as England can boast; Illinois, Missouri, and Indiana can boast of rich deposits also now being worked; New Jersey abounds in ball-clay, common white-ware clay, and all kinds of fire and retort clays; while Maine, Connecticut, and Maryland furnish felspar in abundance, and Pennsylvania and Maryland endless quantities of quartz or silica. Every section of the country, from the Rocky Mountains to the State of Maine, has raw material in great variety, as yet unimproved.” In view of these statements, it may appear singular that the Union Porcelain Works at Greenpoint are consuming large quantities of imported kaolin. To explain this, we must believe the word kaolin in the above extract to be applied to the native clay as found, and before it is freed from any impurity. This belief is supported by M. Ch. de Bussy, one of the French members of the International Jury at the Centennial Exhibition. In his report he says: “Les matiÈres premiÈres pour la poterie sont abondantes aux États-Unis. Des dÉpÔts de kaolin sont exploitÉs dans un grand nombre d’États, principalement dans ceux de New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Georgia. Plusieurs des matiÈres dÉsignÉes sous le nom de kaolin ne sont pas toutefois le produit de la dÉcomposition du feldspath in situ; ce ne sont À proprement parler, que des argiles blanches qui ne peuvent servir À la fabrication de la porcelaine que par leur association À du feldspath et du quartz.” He then goes on to say that the kaolin is not prepared with sufficient care, and that for that reason the Greenpoint factory uses for its table porcelain a great deal of English kaolin.

Another reason is that the English clay can always be depended upon, and that the native, for lack of proper preparation, cannot. The general conclusions of M. Ch. de Bussy are confirmed by investigations made here. The above mentioned report by the Geological Survey, embracing all or the greater number of the clays of the State{450} of New Jersey, gives much valuable information, and farther substantiates our view. The following table has been compiled from the data there given, for the purpose of comparing the imported kaolin with the New Jersey clays, and thus arriving at the truth upon this point:

	Cornwall, England.	Cornwall.	Standard Kaolin.	Redruth, Cornwall.	Perth Amboy.	Staten Island.	Washington.
Silica	46.32	46.29	46.00	28.40	77.10	92.70	99.40
Alumina	39.74	....	40.00	24.11	17.10	5.70	7.80
Water	12.67	....	13.00	7.90	4.50	0.70	2.60
Potash	....	....	....	0.96	1.30	0.35	....
Line	0.36	0.50	0.33	....	....	....	....
Magnesia	....	....	0.33	....	....	....	....
Iron	0.27	0.27	0.33	0.79	....	....	....
Titanic Acid	....	....	....	0.20	....	....	....
Sand	....	....	....	37.80	....	....	....
	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
No. 4.—This clay is used with others to give toughness to vessels to be exposed to sudden changes of temperature.
Nos. 5, 6, and 7.—In these the silica and sand are added together, and the alumina includes the iron.

In the selected clays of New Jersey the great preponderance of silica at once attracts attention, and is to be attributed to the admixture of sand, which averages about seventy-five per cent. of the mass. Whenever the silica is present in a greater amount than the standard percentage given in the table, and particularly when it appears in the form of sand, the clay becomes less fit for making fine ware. The body is proportionately coarser. The Jersey clay, therefore, although locally dignified with the name of kaolin, cannot be used by the manufacturer of porcelain.

The deposit has been made under less favorable circumstances than that of south-western England. There nature has to a great extent performed the washing process, by carrying the decomposed felspar along a valley and dropping the impurities and coarser ingredients by the way. The artificial process is simply the counterpart of that of nature. In New Jersey the clay and quartz-sand are in some places deposited together, and are then miscalled felspar; in others they have been partially assorted, the fine particles being deposited in one bed, the quartz-sand in another. An analysis of three specimens{451} of this “felspar” shows the following ingredients, the decrease of sand and increase of alumina being especially noteworthy:

Silicic Acid and Quartz-sand	75.88	74.00	77.40
Alumina	18.95	17.55	16.07
Water	4.90	6.30	4.30
Iron	0.49	0.54	0.53
Magnesia	.....	.....	0.25
Potash	0.15	0.12	0.15
Soda	0.21	0.21	.....
Titanic Acid	.....	0.90	.....
	100.58	99.62	98.70

These tables will explain the language of the report, that the New Jersey “kaolins” are “simply mica-bearing sands,” and that the felspar “is more properly a kaolin.” “The so-called kaolin is a micaceous sand, consisting of fine-grained white quartz-sand, mixed with a small and varying percentage of white mica, in small flakes or scales, and a very little white clay.” In other words, there is no New Jersey clay entitled to the distinctive name of kaolin, and the inveterate misapplication of the word illustrates the difficulty to be encountered by the inquirer into this matter. M. de Bussy, for example, in the passage quoted, falls very naturally into the error of classing New Jersey with the “large number of States in which deposits of kaolin are found.” His mistake, and the confusion of terms which led to it, makes it all the more desirable that something definite should be known of the deposits in other States.

As to the deposits of Pennsylvania and the West, there appears to be considerable difference of opinion, but the existence of clay for making every kind of ware, from drain-pipes to porcelain vases, is beyond all doubt. A partial analysis of Georgia kaolin showed that in the leading ingredients of silica and alumina it approached very nearly the standard given in the table. The whole question appears to be one of analysis, preparation, and experiment, so that when the manufacturers buy clay for a special purpose, they can depend absolutely upon what they obtain.

Mr. T. C. Smith, of Greenpoint, is so confident of the richness of this country, that he believes kaolin of the best quality exists in abundance, and that it will in course of time be an article of export.

At the Centennial Exhibition, Mr. Laughlin, of East Liverpool,{452} Ohio, appeared as one of the representatives of Western enterprise. He thinks the varieties of clay in America outnumber those of all the rest of the world. At East Liverpool all the varieties are used. A new clay found in Missouri, and expected to be very valuable, has recently been added to the list. It gives the paste a peculiar softness of color, and lends additional beauty to the manufactured ware. Mr. Laughlin said nothing of exporting clays, but thought it highly probable that European capital would be brought into this country to work the inexhaustible materials which it contains for every kind of ware. What are wanted to render these kaolinic treasures available are the enterprise, skill, and capital to prepare and compound them. It is, at least, suggested that this is the greater part of the difficulty, and that if the peculiar qualities of each deposit were more precisely known, if the crude material were skilfully cleaned, and experiments were systematically conducted for the purpose of discovering the combinations necessary for making a true and regular porcelain clay, there would be no necessity for going away from home for any ingredient of the requisite porcelain paste. This supposition is borne out by the fact that a few years ago a number of American potters attempted to make porcelain with kaolin brought from the South, and in every instance failed. Others have since met with success more or less complete. BÖttcher did not succeed on his first attempt, and, in fact, it was not until several years after his death that the best Dresden ware was made. In a similar manner, experiment alone can enable American potters to avail themselves of the undoubted wealth of their own country. Meantime, it is noteworthy that the deposits of all kinds now being worked are of sufficient value to maintain a number of mills for levigating, drying, and grinding. Several are on the Susquehanna, in Maryland; at East Liverpool, Ohio; at Fort Ann, New York; on the Connecticut River; and at Trenton, New Jersey.{453}

POTTERY.

The few known incidents in the development of the art may be stated as nearly as possible in chronological order; and, to keep the thread of the narrative unbroken, reference may at the same time be made to the early and unsuccessful attempts at establishing the manufacture of porcelain in conjunction with that of pottery. During the eighteenth century the records open to our inspection, especially the journals of the day, make occasional references to imported wares, chiefly of English manufacture. Mr. Marryat, in treating of English pottery, refers to the popular indifference in England to the advantages of crockery over pewter dishes and wooden trenchers. He then says, “The introduction of stone-ware in the sixteenth century, and of Oriental porcelain in its imitation delft-ware shortly afterward, and, lastly, the Staffordshire earthen-ware, gradually expelled pewter dishes and plates, though it is but recently they have been entirely dismissed.” Popular usage in America followed a parallel course, and there are many places at which the substitution of crockery for wood and metal was made within the memory of persons now living. Mr. J. F. Watson, in his “Annals of Philadelphia,” describing the furniture of a room of presumably about a century ago, gives some interesting particulars in regard to this subject. “One corner,” he says, “was occupied by a beaufet, which was a corner closet with a glass door, in which all the china of the family and the plate were intended to be displayed for ornament as well as use. A conspicuous article in the collection was always a great china punch-bowl, which furnished a frequent and grateful beverage; for wine drinking was then much less in vogue. China teacups and saucers were about half their present size; and china teapots and coffee-pots with silver nozzles were a mark of superior finery. The sham of plated ware was not then known, and all who showed a silver service had the massive metal too. This occurred in the wealthy families, in little coffee and{454} tea pots; and a silver tankard for good sugared toddy was above vulgar entertainment. Where we now use earthen-ware, they then used delft-ware, imported from England; and instead of queen’s-ware (then unknown) pewter plates and porringers, made to shine along a dresser, were universal. Some, and especially the country people, ate their meals from wooden trenchers.” This passage may be taken as affording a faithful view of American usage in regard to the different points upon which it touches, not in Pennsylvania alone, of which Mr. Watson is more particularly treating, but throughout the country. China was still an article of luxury, in which only the rich could indulge. We are, therefore, prepared to find that it was not until the close of the last century, and after the Revolutionary troubles, that crockery assumed any importance as an article of commerce between England and the United States. For a long time prior to that period it is reasonable to suppose that America had been able to satisfy the home demand for all the coarser wares, and also for bricks; but at the close of the eighteenth century the manufacture had made little or no progress. It had not advanced beyond the production of bricks, tiles, and certain kinds of coarse stone-ware and pottery. It is, to say the least, amusing to find Wedgwood, in 1765, expressing fears for England’s earthen-ware trade with America, on account of the establishment of some “new Pottworks in South Carolina.” “They have,” he said, “every material there, equal if not superior to our own, for carrying on that manufacture;” and on these and other grounds he asked if something could not be done to protect the home manufacture!

Miss Meteyard, Wedgwood’s biographer, relates that in 1766 a Mr. Bartlem, a Staffordshire potter, emigrated to South Carolina, and having induced several workmen to join him, began his trade in that State. He failed there, as he had done in England, and a similar fate befell an enterprise which had for its object the establishment of china works in Pennsylvania.

Previous to 1796 both earthen and stone ware were made by Mr. Charles Lathrop at Norwich, Connecticut; and in 1789 Mr. Samuel Dennis made an unsuccessful application for State aid in founding a stone pottery in Connecticut, at which he promised to make ware resembling the Staffordshire queen’s-ware. The industry was also pursued at Hartford by Isaac Hanford, at Stonington by Adam States,{455} and at Norwalk. Shortly afterward, or in the first decade of the present century, ware of an apparently higher class began to be made in the Eastern States, and although large quantities continued to be imported from England, the native wares rapidly improved in quality and increased in quantity.

About the year 1800, Van Wickle’s stone-ware factory was in operation at Old Bridge, now Herbertsville, New Jersey. The clay used was obtained from Morgan’s Bank at South Amboy. Two years later a similar factory, using the same material, was started by the Prices at Roundabout, now Sayreville, on the Raritan. In 1833 J. R. Watson, of Perth Amboy, established a factory of fire-brick, and was working it regularly three years later.

The workshop now carried on by Mr. Richard C. Ramey at Philadelphia is one of the oldest stone-ware factories in America. It turns out a good quality of fire-brick and ware for chemical purposes. A few other Philadelphia firms may here be noticed. Harvey & Adamson make a strong and durable quality of stone-ware, with a hard vitreous glaze (grÈs cÉrames), and artistic terra-cotta. Jeffords & Co., of the same city, manufacture an excellent grade of fine stone-ware for household purposes, and table wares. The pieces have usually mouldings in relief, and are colored brown or yellow on the outside and white inside. The latter is apparently produced by making use of an engobe of very white clay. Galloway & Graiff make earthen-ware of various kinds, including terra-cotta in Greek shapes. Moorhead & Wilson have very extensive clay works at Spring Mills, and manufacture terra-cotta for building purposes. They also make terra-cotta vases, after the antique, for decorators.

At Baltimore good qualities of common earthen-ware and salt-glazed stone-ware are made by Perrine & Co.

About 1825 a factory of natural porcelain was founded by a number of Frenchmen in Jersey City. We have a specimen of this porcelain, made in 1826—a small bowl, with excellent body and glaze, and decorated with a gold band round the outside of the rim. The venture did not prove a success, and the production ceased within a year or two. In 1829 the works were assumed by David Henderson & Co., and carried on under the firm of the American Pottery Company. It was here that the throwing and turning of earthen-ware upon the{456} English principle was first performed in America, by William and James Taylor. This was also the first successful attempt to compete with England, and was made in connection with the manufacture of a yellow ware. Three years later, or in 1832, the same potters were making a cream-colored ware chiefly from imported materials. To the decoration of a white ware the English process of printing was successfully brought, and a brown earthen-ware, made about the same date, was variously ornamented with reliefs and colored enamels. Three specimens of the latter are in the Metropolitan Museum. One consists of a water-pitcher modelled by Daniel Greatbatch (Fig. 430), with the handle in shape of a hound, and a hunting scene in relief, and belongs to the earlier period of the factory. About 1845 a change appears to have taken place in the proprietorship, as we then find the company consisting of Messrs. William Rhodes (whom we shall meet again in Trenton), Strong, and M’Gerron. The firm made white granite and cream-colored ware until 1854. At that time the pressure of foreign competition was so great that they could not gain a foothold in the regular trade. Their wares were chiefly sold by peddlers and itinerant dealers, who were in the habit of going to the factory with wagons, when they knew that a kiln was to be drawn, and carting off the goods before they were trimmed. Rhodes resigned in 1854, and went to Vermont; and the remaining partners sold out, in 1855, to Rouse, Turner, Duncan & Henry, of whom Messrs. Rouse & Turner are now carrying on the establishment. The popularity occasionally reached by a single form was, perhaps, never better exemplified than by the brown pitcher above mentioned. It is made down to the present time, and has become so identified with the factory, that, when wishing to send a memento to his{457} friend Mr. John Haslem, of the Derby Works in England, Mr. Rouse thought he could not do better than send him one of these pitchers, of a size larger than ordinary. The present firm have not used any imported clay for the past fifteen years. They now obtain spar from Connecticut, flint from Lantern Hill, Connecticut, China clay from South Carolina, and other clays from New Jersey. The staple of the factory is granite-ware, for which a peculiar ivory-colored glaze has recently been adopted. Parian is also made. The Jersey City biscuit is extensively consumed by decorators, and some new and very handsome shapes have been designed for this special branch of trade (see Fig. 457).

Messrs. Lyman, Fenton & Co. embarked, in 1847, in an enterprise at Bennington, Vermont, which promised to be a commercial success. They made both pottery and artificial porcelain. The enamel upon certain specimens of the former in the Metropolitan Museum, and belonging to the Trumbull-Prime collection, is of a notably good quality. The works stopped, after running for about twelve years.

The oldest establishment in New York is the Hudson River Pottery, in West Twelfth Street. It was founded in 1838, and is now carried on under the firm of William A. Macquoid & Co. The only products, until within a year ago, were stone-ware and glazed earthen-ware. At that time the demand by decorators for terra-cotta in the choicest antique forms led the firm to add it to their list of productions. The experiment was successful. The paste is fine and well worked.

The “Manhattan Pottery” of Stewart & Co., in West Eighteenth Street, New York, is engaged chiefly in the production of drain-pipes and terra-cotta. The former are glazed with “Albany slip,” obtained from the bed of the Hudson at Albany, which{458} renders them perfectly impervious to the action of acids.

Mr. James Carr, of the New York City Pottery, after working for some time with the American Pottery Company, in Jersey City, went, in 1852, to South Amboy, and founded an establishment for making yellow, Rockingham, and cream-colored ware. Twenty-two years ago he removed to his present premises in West Thirteenth Street, New York. Mr. Carr makes use of six or seven different bodies, all composed of American materials. Some time ago he made a few pieces, including a tea-service and two statuettes (Fig. 431) of artificial porcelain, using bone and kaolin from Chester County, Pennsylvania. The table-pieces are decorated with festoons of flowers, in pink and green, and a rim of blue and gold. The statuettes are well modelled and very tastefully colored. The staple product of the factory is stone china, which is largely sought in biscuit by decorators. The quality is probably as fine as it is possible to make stone china, and styles of decoration are followed which are rarely found on a similar body. Dinner-services are decorated with all the care usually reserved for porcelain, and many ornamental pieces, including a series of circular plaques, show admirable taste and workmanship (Fig. 432). A third quality of ware is called “Semi-china,” and is nearly as translucent as porcelain. It is made from American kaolin clay, with a large admixture of felspar. It is decorated in styles{459} similar to those found upon the iron-stone china. Mr. Carr also makes statuettes and busts in terra-cotta, of a warm, rich tint, and in a fine, partially translucent parian. Besides these, the works produce cream-colored ware and majolica. The latter is made into a great variety of forms—jars, pedestals, seats, boxes, and cups, the leading colors of which are a clear deep blue, yellow, and green.

Some of the colors found upon iron-stone china pieces are remarkably good, notably a fine mazarine blue and a brilliant black. Artistic work of all kinds is receiving attention. Mr. Carr has made many experiments, and continues making them with unremitting ardor (Fig. 433). Beginning to work at a time when the mechanical difficulties in the way of success seemed insuperable, he gradually extended his efforts as these difficulties disappeared, and is now reaching toward the higher forms of the art. The story of his life is the history of modern American pottery.

The history of Trenton is interesting from the enormous development of the manufacture in that city within a very short space of time. The business was begun in 1852, by the firm of Taylor & Speeler. Taylor is said to have made the first porous cup at Jersey City, for Professor Morse’s experiments. This honor is also claimed for the Robertsons of Chelsea, Massachusetts. But leaving that question in the mean time, it would appear that the Taylor here spoken of is the same whom we have seen at work as a thrower with the American Pottery Company. The Trenton firm made yellow and Rockingham ware, with which they were successful from the first. They also attempted porcelain and parian; but these wares, though of fine quality, were not received with such favor as to make their production a commercial success. This resulted, in all probability, from the difficulties attending the manufacture. Since their day the business has almost entirely turned toward another class of white goods, the granite-ware in common use, and for a long time no attempts to manufacture porcelain were made except in the way of experiment. This was done by nearly every firm in the business.

Taylor & Speeler were making white granite in 1856, but only to a limited extent, and in connection with yellow-ware and Rockingham. A medal was awarded them for the manufacture of superior pottery. This honor was conferred in 1856, by the Franklin Institute{460} of the State of Pennsylvania. The medal is now in Mr. Taylor’s possession. As a memento of the skill shown in the early days of American pottery it will bear description. It is made of silver, and has on one side the inscription, “Reward of skill and industry to Taylor, Speeler & Bloor, Trenton, New Jersey, for china, granite, and earthen ware, 1856.” On the obverse is a likeness of Benjamin Franklin, and the words “Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania, 1824.” To Mr. Taylor, the senior partner of the firm, the credit is due of first firing a kiln with anthracite coal.

The factory is now called the Trenton Pottery Works. Mr. Bloor joined the original firm of Taylor & Speeler in 1854, and retired in 1859. Soon afterward Mr. Speeler sold out to John F. Houdayer, and in 1870 the firm consisted of Mr. Taylor and John Goodwin. A year later Mr. Goodwin was bought out by his son, James H. Goodwin, and Isaac Davis, the latter of whom soon afterward acquired Goodwin’s share, and in 1875 became sole proprietor by purchasing Mr. Taylor’s interest. Mr. Davis, like several others of the older Trenton potters, is an Englishman, and the fact is noteworthy, in view of the opposition to goods of American manufacture. It shows how blind was the prejudice which, there being no question of the excellence of American materials, will not concede to an Englishman in America the skill and ability of the same Englishman in England. Mr. Davis went to Trenton from Staffordshire in 1862, worked first with William Young & Sons, formed a copartnership with George Lawton, upon a capital of $300, joined the Glasgow Pottery Company, and then, as we have seen, bought an interest in the firm of Taylor & Goodwin.

The first to make cream-colored ware for the market were William Young & Sons, Astbury & Millington, who comprised the firm which, in 1853, laid the foundation of an industry which has since attained to enormous dimensions. They had large orders for strawberry bowls from a trucker near Rocky Hill, and these they fired in Taylor & Speeler’s yellow-ware kiln. The business, although greatly increased, has not changed its character, and is at the present time carried on by William Young’s sons.

Of the original partners Astbury formed a copartnership with Mr. Maddock, and the present firm is Astbury & Maddock, of which the{461} latter is the only surviving partner. Its chief product is sanitary and druggists’ ware, and experiments are also made with American kaolins—those of Missouri, Pennsylvania, and other States—with a view to the manufacture of a true American porcelain. Decorating and printing are now receiving a considerable amount of attention. Mr. Millington, also of the old firm, resigned, and founded the pottery now bearing his name.

The first pottery fitted up for the exclusive manufacture of white granite and cream-colored ware was that of Rhodes & Yates, in 1859, at the present City pottery, on Perry Street. This Mr. Rhodes is the same one who was partner in the Jersey City pottery. On going to Vermont, in 1854, he established the manufacture of white-ware, and remained there until the fall of 1859, when he joined Mr. Yates in a new enterprise in Trenton. The previous history of the City pottery is a story of continuous changes. At one time it was occupied by William Young & Sons, who were making porcelain hardware trimmings. In 1853 it was purchased by Mr. Charles Hattersley, and in 1856 passed into the possession of Mr. Yates, who leased it to James and Thomas Lynch. For two years they occupied it as a drain-pipe factory, and in 1859 it was assumed by Mr. Yates, in partnership with Mr. Rhodes. In putting granite and cream-colored ware upon the market, the firm had many obstacles to overcome. Chief among them was the all-prevailing prejudice of dealers and consumers in favor of imported goods. Success, however, came in course of time. An entrance was forced into the market, and other firms which rapidly sprung into existence seconded their efforts in securing for Trenton a remunerative recognition in the white-ware trade. Meantime several changes took place in the firm of Rhodes & Yates. Mr. Higginson became leading partner, and in 1865 the firm was Yates & Titus, which was changed, in 1870, to Yates, Bennett & Allen, and in the fall of 1875 to the City Pottery Company, of which Mr. Yates and Mr. John Rhodes—a son of William Rhodes—are two of the partners. The period of seven years between Taylor & Speeler’s venture and that of Rhodes & Yates may be called the infancy of the Trenton manufacture. Since that time the production has increased year by year, and Trenton well deserves the title conferred upon it of “The Staffordshire of America.” Its annual productive capacity is about{462} two and a half millions, and during 1876 the actual production was about $1,750,000. There are, in all, nineteen potteries in the city, and several decorating establishments. To illustrate what is now being done, and to indicate the new channels which the industry is seeking, a few of the leading factories may be referred to.

The Etruria Pottery Company is now working the factory built, in 1863, by Messrs. William Bloor, Joseph Ott, and Thomas Booth. Mr. Booth retired in 1864, and was succeeded by G. S. Burroughs, who, in 1865, withdrew and made way for J. Hart Brewer. In 1871 Mr. Bloor retired, and the firm of Ott & Brewer remained in possession until January, 1878, when the Etruria Pottery Company was organized. Until 1876 the staple products of the factory were white granite and cream-colored ware. Its ivory porcelain and parian will be noticed hereafter.

The Glasgow Pottery of John Moses & Company sends out an immense quantity of white granite and cream-colored ware, and experiments are also conducted, chiefly with Pennsylvania kaolin, with a view to making porcelain. That now regularly made is called semi-porcelain, and many trial pieces have a pure translucent body and excellent glaze.

The firm of Coxon & Co. was founded, in 1863, by Mr. Charles Coxon, and is now composed of his widow, J. G. Forman, and S. M. Alpaugh. Mr. Coxon began with cream-colored ware, and conjoined it with white granite toward the end of 1863. Since that time the firm has produced both qualities.

One of the later establishments is the Mercer Pottery, built in 1868, of which Mr. James Moses is sole proprietor. Besides the common grades of earthen-ware, stone china and semi-porcelain are made and decorated. There is a decided tendency here toward the production of a finer quality of ware, and of styles of decoration possessed of artistic merit.

At the Arsenal Pottery Mr. Joseph Mayer manufactures Rockingham and brown stone-ware, and is in the possession of a number of excellent designs. Of the remaining Trenton potteries—the East Trenton Pottery Company, the American Crockery Company, Joseph H. Moore’s, the Greenwood Pottery Company, and the Millham—it is unnecessary to give details. Within the past two or three years all{463} have been turning their attention to work of a more or less artistic character, some directing their efforts more particularly to decorating, and others to the perfecting of a body which shall enable them to compete with the manufacturers of porcelain. In the latter respect the Greenwood company has met with gratifying success, and has given their ware the name of “American China.”

It will thus be seen that the history of modern American art and manufacture does not extend much beyond a century. Progress has been rapid, and the trade has developed with gigantic strides.

It is estimated that there are in all seven hundred and seventy-seven pottery establishments in the United States, including those for all kinds of ware, from terra-cotta to porcelain. All, or nearly all, these have sprung up within twenty-five years, and many of them since the Civil War. The productive capacity of some of the leading centres may be judged from the number of kilns they require. At Trenton there are fifty-seven kilns; at East Liverpool, forty-six; at Cincinnati, twelve; at Flushing and Greenpoint, Long Island, eleven; at Pittsburg six; or there are at sixteen seats of the industry, and excluding terra-cotta manufactories, one hundred and seventy kilns. The capital invested by the forty firms, members of the Potters’ Association, is upward of four millions, an amount vastly increased by the remaining seven hundred and thirty odd establishments throughout the country. White granite-ware, an abomination in point of art, but eminently useful, is made at other places in this country besides Trenton in great abundance. The only manufactory of white granite and cream-colored ware in the Eastern States is that of the New England Pottery Company at East Boston. It was established in 1854.

A display was made at the Centennial Exhibition of what was called “Ivory Porcelain,” from the Etruria Pottery of Ott & Brewer, Trenton. It has a hard, semi-translucent body, and clear, smooth boracic glaze. It bears a close resemblance to Mr. Carr’s semi-china, and is substantially the same ware that is now receiving attention from many of the other Trenton potters. It may be said to mark the first stage on the way to a true American porcelain. By exhibiting it at the Centennial Exhibition, Ott & Brewer were really the first to draw the public attention to this new departure in American manufacture.{464} Its distinctive name is taken from its soft, ivory-like tint. The advantages claimed for it are, that while it answers all the purposes of china, its manufacture is less expensive, and permits its being put upon the market at a much lower price; that it equals the average china in point of both utility and appearance; and that its consistency is such that it can be made into more graceful or less clumsy shapes than granite. Experience alone can dispose of these claims. It is fired, like granite-ware, hard in the biscuit and soft in the gloss-kiln, from which it would appear that the glaze and paste are not homogeneous, as in natural porcelain. Practically, however, this new ware represents a great and substantial improvement in the manufacture of a general domestic article. All the component ingredients of both paste and glaze are found in America.

At Ott & Brewer’s, also, are to be discovered the first glimmerings of what may be called an art, in the studio of Mr. Isaac Broome, an American artist of considerable repute and skill. Mr. Broome devoted himself to both painting and sculpture before turning his attention to ceramic art. Some years ago he established a terra-cotta workshop in Pittsburg; but the locality was unfavorable, and the enterprise was abandoned. A similar venture in New York city also failed.

Several months prior to the Centennial Exhibition he was employed by Messrs. Ott & Brewer to design and model certain works in parian. These were exhibited at Philadelphia, and were very favorably received. The improved kiln previously described (see page{465} 79) was built after his plans, and under his personal direction for firing the works turned out of his studio. Of these one of the best was suggested by Mr. J. Hart Brewer, and consists of (Fig. 434) a pair of vases in parian designed to illustrate the national game of base-ball. Great variety of detail is attained without detriment to a certain severity of outline. From a narrow base the body contracts quickly to its smallest girth, and thence expands gradually to the top. Round the foot of each vase, and standing on the supporting pedestal, are arranged three figures of base-ball players, modelled after a thoroughly American ideal of physical beauty, embodying muscular activity rather than ponderous strength. The attitudes are very well chosen, and invest the figures with an appearance of life and vigorous action. A series of clubs belted round with a strap ornaments the stem of the vases, and some exquisitely wrought leaves and berries are woven round the top. The orifice is covered by a cupola or dome, composed of a segment of a base-ball, upon which stands an eagle. These vases are the work of a genuine artist, who has surrounded a general design of great merit with many finely executed and suggestive details.

The same artist’s “rustic,” or “Pastoral,” vases (Fig. 435) illustrate a different order of ideas. Here the surface is covered with mouldings in relief, composing{466} a design partly suggested by mythology, partly original. It carries us back to the golden age of the poets. A female figure, which might be that of Flora or Proserpina, dances to a satyr who plays a musical instrument. The details are all in perfect harmony—the dancing goats, the grape-vines, the leaves, rustic wood-work, and goat’s-head handles. A tasteful finish is given to the decoration by a fluting running round the upper part of the neck to the lip. To produce a good effect, work of this kind, all in relief and uncolored, demands the nicest finish, and a design which shall lean neither toward scantiness on the one hand, nor overloaded ornamentation on the other. In both respects Mr. Broome has been fortunate. The decoration relieves without destroying the fine outline of the vase.

Mr. Broome’s “Fashion” vases (Fig. 437) are embellished with some very fine illustrations of the fashions of a century ago and also of the present time. Of these the shapes are exceedingly quaint and uncommon, and the figures in low relief are very highly finished.

Besides these, Mr. Broome has modelled a great number of the heads and busts which have always been the staple of workers in parian. Some are original, others are reproductions from the antique. To the former class belongs an ideal Cleopatra (Fig. 438). The artist has chosen a full and sensuous type of beauty, vastly different from that adopted by recent painters who have ventured to portray upon canvas the charms which melted the stern CÆsar and enslaved Antony. Somehow one associates the style of beauty represented in Mr. Broome’s bust rather generally with the land of Egypt than specially with the conquests of Cleopatra. This may result from a familiarity with less truthful conceptions, and in that view implies a decided merit. The artist has in details followed history as closely{467} as it seems possible for him to have done, and has wisely preferred study and research to giving his imagination a free rein. Imagination, or an American model, might have led him to present a higher type of beauty, but neither would have led him to produce a distinctively Egyptian Cleopatra. Accepting his ideal, it is worked out with unmistakable talent, and with the most painstaking attention to workmanship.

It is unnecessary to particularize farther. The Etruria Pottery Company have made a good beginning, and in directing the efforts of their artists it is to be hoped that they may not allow the commercial success of copies of the antique to divert attention from such works as those described. The paste employed is fine, compact, and hard, and assumes in some pieces the clear and polished appearance of marble. Its precise composition is not known. The paste is, as in the usual case, poured in a fluid state into plaster moulds, which absorb the superfluous water. Oxides are used to vary the color of the casts, and a number of tints of great delicacy and beauty have been secured.

American terra-cotta must be briefly dismissed. At the Centennial Exhibition an extensive assortment was shown from works situated in many parts of the country. One or two makers displayed an utterly misguided taste in attempting something original. Others appeared to confine themselves to the well-known Apollo Belvederes, Niobes, and other antique subjects. Garden vases and ornaments were meritorious as a class; but whatever artistic work may be produced in some quarters, in others art is only budding, and will take some time before it blooms into flower. Some excellent work in terra-cotta is executed in Philadelphia and New York, and has been referred to above. Of the hundreds of other{468} factories throughout the country few have done anything distinctive. One or two might possibly be mentioned, such as the Halm Art Pottery Company, of Sandy Hill, New York, which are gradually drawing away from the commonplace, and may be expected, sooner or later, to possess an artistic individuality. Among Eastern workshops may be mentioned those of Beverly, Portland, North Cambridge, and Chelsea, Massachusetts. A great deal of the red terra-cotta of Beverly is consumed by decorative artists and students. The Portland terra-cotta is well known both for excellence of body and beauty of shape. The paste is unusually fine and close in texture, and is excellent under the brush. The North Cambridge establishment also turns out ware of a high quality. The designing department is evidently under skilful and competent supervision, and the forms have an antique grace which never loses its charm. As in the case of Beverly, the products of both these workshops are well adapted to the purposes of the decorator.

Chelsea demands a larger share of our attention for styles of work in terra-cotta unique among American products. The establishment is at present carried on by Robertson & Sons, under the name of the “Chelsea Keramic Art Works.” The firm consists of J. Robertson and his two sons, A. W. Robertson and Hugh C. Robertson. The workshop was founded on 1st June, 1868, by A. W. Robertson, for the production of English brown-ware. He was joined by his brother, and the chief wares made at that time were fancy flower-pots. J. Robertson was admitted to the firm by his sons on 1st June, 1872, and affords a good instance of the wide experience it is possible to compress into one lifetime. Mr. Robertson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and first worked in the Fife pottery, at Dysart, where his father was head workman. He there acquired a knowledge of modelling and mould-making, and at the age of sixteen was engaged by the Watsons of Prestonpans, Mid-Lothian, then the leading fine-ware factory in Scotland. He next tried the North of England, and worked as modeller and mould-maker at several factories, gaining experience and proficiency, and ultimately took the management of a small red-ware pottery, where he introduced both white and printed ware, “smeared black” and “lustred” ware. On leaving, he tried manufacturing on his own account for a time, and then accepted the position of superintendent{469} of a black-ware factory at North Shields. He arrived in America in 1853, and worked first in a factory at South River; then with Mr. J. Carr, at South Amboy, and afterward at Thirteenth Street, New York; next with Speeler, Taylor & Bloor, at Trenton; and lastly as manager of the East Boston pottery. His next step was to join his sons at Chelsea, each of whom has had a more or less varied career, and is expert in at least one branch of the business. Since the establishment was opened, a great many experimental pieces have been made of different materials, sizes, and shapes. What are known as porous cones were made some time ago for chemical purposes, and are of so open a body that the breath can be drawn through them with ease. We have already seen that Jersey City claims this discovery. The credit is probably due to both, as they appear to have arrived at the same result by independent courses. Work of a more purely artistic character was tried about eight years ago, but, commercially speaking, without success. A second attempt was made in 1873, and the production has been continued down to the present time. The artists and collectors of Boston soon discovered certain qualities in the Chelsea potters and their works deserving recognition. They may possibly have reached the conviction that Chelsea is to be numbered among the places where artists value their work solely according to its truth, excellence, and beauty. Without affecting to disregard commercial considerations, they succeed in giving their art the precedence. It is not, therefore, a matter of surprise either that they should have convinced a section of the public that Chelsea can do noble service in the cause of American art, or that many excellent works should bear its mark. Allusion may first, however, be made to certain matters with which the Robertsons allow their attention to be diverted from more serious pursuits. They have been inspired by Doulton’s treatment of stone-ware to make certain small pieces of fine earthen-ware of a gray color faintly tinged with blue, and very brilliantly glazed. The decoration consists of incised designs. The pieces do not bear a very close resemblance to Doulton ware, but are in themselves decidedly attractive. The Robertsons, having mastered the fundamental secret of the Haviland process, viz., of applying the colors upon the unbaked clay, have, in the second place, brought out a few pieces after the style of the Limoges faience. Their success here is limited{470} by a palette which must be considerably enriched before the effects of the French ware are reached.

The best Chelsea works are in red and white unglazed earthen-ware. Of these we give two illustrations (Figs. 439 and 440). Some of the forms are original, and others are after the Greek, Italian, and other types. The decoration consists of designs graved in the paste, of mouldings in relief, and of carvings in relief. The application of moulded ornaments to the surface has been practised in all ages, and the Chelsea work does not demand special comment, although many of the designs are attractive and simple. The carving in relief belongs to a different order of work. Instead of being moulded, the ornamentation of leaves or flowers is carved out of clay laid upon the surface of the vase while still moist from the hands of the thrower. The effect is similar to that obtained by mouldings, but the work is finer, the details more highly finished, and the outlines sharper and clearer. Of the designs in these and the pieces decorated with mouldings, the best are those in which leaves either lie across the vase or form a calyx from which it rises upward. The absence of color allows the attention to rest solely upon the fidelity with which every detail is rendered. If this be the quality of work with which the Robertsons tested American taste eight years ago, it is not easy to understand why they did not succeed.{471}

PORCELAIN.

The history of American porcelain is necessarily brief. The impetus toward the higher branches of the art, emanating from Europe, in due time reached these shores. It affected the rapidly developing enterprise of the citizen of the young Republic, and touched his faith in the vast and varied resources of his country. Previous to the achievement of independence, however, and during the early colonial intercourse with England, an incident occasionally transpired not without interest in our narrative. When Mr. Richard Chaffers died in Liverpool, and his porcelain establishment was closed, many of his workmen came to this country. In 1771 it was reported in England that a large china manufactory was established in Philadelphia, where “better china cups and saucers are made than at Bow or Stratford.” It may astonish many who are not acquainted with anything in American ceramics beyond the competitive spirit which rules the business, to find that more than a century ago it had left England behind in the race!

There appears to be no longer any doubt of the existence of a porcelain factory in Philadelphia about the year 1770, and that, therefore, the report alluded to above was “founded on fact.” Advertisements have been discovered which go far toward settling the question. They promise work equal to that of Bow, and are therefore in all probability the basis of the rumor above mentioned, which was current in England a year later. How long the works were carried on is not known.

The next porcelain venture was made in the same city, between 1816 and 1830, by William Ellis Tucker. Tucker began as a decorator, and, after a series of experiments, made first a non-translucent ware of good quality, and then natural porcelain (Figs. 441 and 442).{472}

His works were originally situated behind his father’s china store in Market Street, and afterward at the corner of Market, Schuylkill, and Front streets. One serious impediment to success was a treacherous workman, who did all he could to frustrate his employer’s design. His first experiment was to cut the handles off the pieces when placing them in the kiln. His next was to wash the seggars with felspar, which melted in the kiln and fastened the wares to the bottom of the seggars. When Tucker first made porcelain for the market is not recorded, but in 1827 he was honored with a silver medal by the Franklin Institute of the State of Pennsylvania. Some time prior to Tucker’s death, in 1832, Judge Hemphill had been admitted as partner, and subsequently carried on the factory, in connection with Thomas Tucker, a brother of the founder, for a few years. He then sold out. Thomas took the works in hand alone in 1837, and kept them running for about a year, when the production ceased. The products of the factory were chiefly table wares. The paste and glaze were both excellent, but the form and decoration would not permit of competition with imported china. The workshop went down for want of public support, and also on account of the alleged impossibility of securing the services of skilled artists. We have already seen that Lyman & Fenton conjoined the making of artificial porcelain (Fig. 443) with that of pottery at Bennington, Vermont. This factory is chiefly remarkable as the first from which figures in biscuit were turned out. We have also noticed the Jersey City enterprise of Henderson & Co. Several attempts to produce porcelain were made at Greenpoint, Long Island. In 1848, Mr. Charles Cartalege met with some success in the manufacture of knobs and buttons, but in no table ware. Altogether it is probable{473} that about a dozen different establishments were founded for the purpose of inaugurating the manufacture of a native porcelain. They generally succeeded in making a few pieces, and then stopped for lack of patronage. The honor of first establishing the industry upon a successful basis, and of turning out a commercial ware, is to be ascribed to Mr. Thomas C. Smith, of the Union Porcelain Works, Greenpoint.

Mr. Smith is an American, whose ancestors arrived in the Eastern States about one hundred and fifty years ago. He was brought up as a mechanic, and first went into the porcelain manufacture in 1857, under a company composed of a number of Germans who had started the business about three years previously. At this time several small kilns existed in Greenpoint, like that of Cartalege, for the purpose of making door-knobs and other hardware trimmings. The paste then used was compounded upon the principle of the English artificial paste, and contained a large proportion of burned bones or phosphate of lime. This was the composition used by the Germans with whom Mr. Smith connected himself. These Germans, through dishonesty and want of knowledge of the business, soon brought the concern into trouble, from which Mr. Smith tried to extricate it by acting as manager for a time, but the derangement and prostration of trade, caused by the outbreak of the Civil War, compelled the company to wind up its affairs. Mr. Smith, being the largest creditor, became the purchaser, his intention being to bring the porcelain enterprise to an end, and make the property available for some other purpose. Meantime he went abroad. At the time when the second battle of Bull Run was fought he was in France, and it was there the idea grew upon him that there was a good opportunity for establishing the porcelain business in his native country. So complete was the change in the formation of his plans, that he immediately turned his attention to making such inquiries as might subserve his purpose, among the great workshops of France and England. When he returned home, his intention of abandoning the manufacture of porcelain disappeared, and he decided to embark anew. The experiments which followed were attended with much anxiety. Up to November, 1863, the old bone body had been retained; but in 1864 Mr. Smith stopped using it, and directed his attention solely to the production of a natural kaolinic{474} porcelain like that of China or Meissen. His experiments extended over about two years. The first pieces were uneven and the vitrification was incomplete. This arose from an ignorance of the correct composition required for success. Farther trials were more encouraging, and in 1865 he succeeded in making a plain white-ware, which he could place upon the market. Mr. Smith prides himself upon one fact, that, unlike any one of the European establishments, from that of Florence downward, he succeeded without aid either from a wealthy patron or from government.

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Fig. 444.—Century Vase. Greenpoint Porcelain.
Fig. 444.—Century Vase. Greenpoint Porcelain.

In 1866 he first began to decorate, with one English and one German artist. By availing himself of odd fragments of information, he not only improved his decoration, but discovered some European usages, the prevalence of which he had not suspected. One of these{475} was that Dresden ware was sent in large quantities to England to be decorated, and was afterward returned to Dresden and sold as Meissen ware. On one occasion he bought in Europe a Meissen porcelain cup decorated with blue, red, and gold. On returning home, he broke the cup, and put one of the pieces in his porcelain furnace, to see if the colors would stand the heat to which his own were exposed. When it was withdrawn the red had disappeared, a thin, almost imperceptible line was all that was left of the gilt, and the blue had run into streaks and blotches. This little experiment taught him that he was contending with difficulties, in firing his colors, which European makers had not thought it necessary to meet. That he has succeeded is marked by the extension of his works, which cover about an acre of ground, and give employment to about one hundred and seventy people. All his porcelain is decorated by his own artists. Mr. Karl MÜller is the chief designer and modeller, and brings a long experience as a sculptor to bear upon his studies in clay. He is a German, whose art education was mainly acquired in Paris under the tuition of the ablest artists of Europe. His predilection for the potter’s art led him to associate himself with Mr. Smith. Before doing so, in 1874, he modelled three terra-cotta figures of base-ball players, in different attitudes suggestive of athletic activity.

The ingredients of Greenpoint porcelain are the kaolins of Cornwall,{476} Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Georgia; felspar from Maine and Connecticut; and quartz, also from Connecticut. These are compounded according to the purpose for which the paste is to be used. In that for table ware the proportions are: kaolin, 37; felspar, 33; quartz, 30. For the glaze: felspar, 15; lime, 15; kaolin, 12; quartz and broken porcelain, 58. The paste made into hardware trimmings contains a greater proportion of American kaolin than that for table ware. As to the merits of the latter it is thus spoken of by M. Ch. de Bussy, from whose official report we have already quoted: “The porcelain of Greenpoint is second to none in quality of paste and hardness of glaze. Most of the articles are heavy, and may be compared in form with that which in French commerce is known as limonade: we have, however, seen thinner pieces, such as tea and coffee cups, well made, and which would figure honorably among the productions of Europe (bien fabriquÉes, et qui pourraient figurer honorablement parmi les productions d’Europe).” Mr. Karl MÜller’s first work of art was a “Century Vase” (Fig. 444), designed by Mr. Smith for the Centennial Exhibition. Bison heads form the handles; medallions decorate the front and back, and below them is a belt of gold with small bison, walrus, ram, and other animal heads arranged at intervals. The base is surrounded by a series of medallions or panels, representing, in white relief, Indians, a soldier of the Revolutionary era, the Tea Scene in Boston Harbor, and other historical incidents. The body is painted in blue, red, and gold. The artistic character of the vase can be sufficiently studied in the engraving. The decoration, it will be observed, consists in part of paintings on the flat, and in part of the reliefs already mentioned, which give a meaning to the distinctive title, “Century{477} Vase,” chosen for the piece. It illustrates the national progress of a century.

When Mr. Longfellow wrote his poem “KÉramos,” it is hardly probable that he contemplated the possibility of supplying a subject to the art of which he sang. The poet wrote of the potter, and the potter has illustrated his song. The poem had no sooner appeared than it was made the groundwork of an illustrative vase (Fig. 445). As in the “Century Vase” history is represented by periods and leading events, so in the “KÉramos” vase the history of ceramic art is represented by the leading contributions to its continuous progress. In panels on the base the potters of all ages are seen at work—Egyptian, Greek, and modern. Above these, on the body, are reliefs illustrative of the pottery of Peru, Italy, France, Spain, England, and other countries. As we turn it round, the advance of ceramic art is seen as in a diorama, and amidst the various scenes appears in relief the bust of the poet whose song inspired the work. The form of the vase is singular, simple, and severe, but well suited to the artist’s treatment of his subject. Its rigidity is considerably softened by the quaint, projecting feet and the figures they support, and by the decoration surrounding the flaring top.

Among the other productions of Greenpoint is a series of statuettes,{478} groups, and animal figures, which were first made in a non-translucent hard clay, of a light but warm brown or buff, and afterward in porcelain biscuit. The material first used is dense and non-vitrifying, more nearly resembling terra-cotta than parian. It is well suited to the production of statuettes and groups, in the modelling of which unmistakable talent and originality are displayed. We can in this department, better perhaps than in any other, appreciate the spirit permeating the designing-room at the Union Works. The rule appears to be to study the antique, but instead of copying or reproducing the works of the ancients, to follow their example in choosing subjects from the every-day life of the artist’s own time. We nowhere see a copy of ancient statuary or feel a breath of borrowed inspiration. Every subject is taken from modern literature, or from life in America in the nineteenth century. One piece (Fig. 447) has under it the words “Stitch! stitch! stitch!” and presents us with a softened illustration of Hood’s poem. We say “softened,” because the artist has preferred—wisely or not we will not now determine—to tone down the unutterable misery of the picture, in which the “woman sat in unwomanly rags, plying her needle and thread.” The unspoken weariness and mingled longing and resignation are here, but the squalor and wretched poverty are rather suggested by the broken box upon which the needle-woman sits, than forced upon our notice. If we accept what was evidently the artist’s working canon, that the literal realization of human wretchedness has no place in art, then we must also accept the work as a fitting counterpart to that of the poet. In any case the conception is praiseworthy, and the execution skilful. Another group was suggested by Poe’s “Raven:”

{479}

The bust of Pallas stands, with the raven on its shoulder, upon a pedestal, in front of which lies a veiled figure. The piece is, we have said, suggested by the poem, of which it is in no sense a literal interpretation. A third group consists of a nude boy and dog, and tells its little story truthfully and forcibly. The attitudes and modelling are alike excellent.

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Fig. 449.—Greenpoint Porcelain.
Fig. 449.—Greenpoint Porcelain.

Other pieces, such as a procession of frogs and turtles with shouldered “pitcher-plants,” illustrate the humorous side of the artist’s genius (Fig. 448). The subject appears to be a favorite one, as we find it variously treated in porcelain also. The other statuettes particularly deserving of notice are a stone-mason, two firemen—one of the old regime and one of the new—{480}and a bust of Forrest as William Tell. These specimens will suffice, with what was said above, to indicate the direction in which this branch of art at Greenpoint is being extended.

There has yet to be considered the staple product of the Union Works, viz., its household porcelain. The paste is, as we have seen, of good quality, and the manufactured ware is strong and serviceable. One of the great obstacles in the way of the success of other enterprises—the lack of skilled artists—Mr. Smith has overcome, and now employs a number of decorators whose work augurs well for the continued prosperity of the establishment. We have seen one set (Fig. 449), composed of a circular tray, sugar-bowl, milk-pitcher, and teacups, which is entirely praiseworthy in both design and workmanship. The prevailing color is lavender, into which are wrought, in the form of birds and flowers, delicate tints of blue and yellow. The effect of the whole is soft and pleasing, and is heightened by the graceful design of the pieces, and the fine translucent body upon which the decoration is laid.

We cannot here point to any style as being particularly distinctive of the workshop. The taste of the decorators is broad and catholic.

White reliefs are occasionally used with fine effect in the ornamentation of pitchers and cups. One of the latter shows white figures in relief upon pale grounds.{481}

The cup is of a very graceful shape, and a miniature Columbia supported by an eagle forms the handle. A pitcher in biscuit (Fig. 451) is surrounded by heads of distinguished poets in relief. In this case also the shape is excellent, and the mouldings, including the subsidiary decoration, are admirably finished.

The painting upon some of the plates is deserving of particular notice. They can only be referred to individually, as we have seen that no leading style has been adopted under which they could be treated of collectively. There is no uniformity either in the merit of the designs or decorations. One has for centre-piece a view of Memorial Hall (Fig. 453), and, set in a rim of deep crimson, oval medallions with similar views. The drawing is very careful, and the colors well assorted. On another style a flower or a fern covers the bottom and falls upon the rim, which has no other decoration. Others have views of a windmill (Fig. 455), a cottage embowered in foliage painted in monochrome, or fruit. In some we find delicacy, and in others the work of a brush unaccustomed to search for subtleties of tint or the more refined expression of which color is capable. Fortunately the latter are the exception and the former the rule.

To examine the methods of the artists of Greenpoint, the plate (Fig. 452) may be referred to. The flowers forming its decoration{482} may be found by almost any country roadside. Gathered as they grew, they were taken to the decorating-room, and were there transferred to porcelain. Apart altogether from the artistic result, there is a principle in such a manner of seeking designs deserving of attention. We have seen that in Japan the secret of the infinite variety of art lies in the close sympathy between the artist and nature. He turns to his promptress on all occasions for inspiration and suggestion. It must be so everywhere. The boundless wealth of form and color found in nature confers an equally boundless variety upon the art in which it is reflected. The conventional is limited by human ingenuity: the natural has no limit.

As a final example of table ware let us instance a plate (Fig. 454) decorated in gold, blue, red, green, yellow, and pink, so sparingly that only a close examination brings out the real richness of the coloring. In the first place, the decoration lies entirely upon the rim, with the exception of two circles of gold and blue. The design consists of crossed branches painted in blue and gold, with insects and brightly feathered birds. The effect is exceedingly soft, the delicacy of the colors being as pleasing to the eye as it is satisfactory in point of taste. The mark of the Greenpoint porcelain is an eagle’s head with the letter S—the manufacturer’s initial—through the beak.

Besides the manufacturers and the{483} artists employed in their establishments, many persons make a business of decorating earthen-ware and porcelain, and within the past few years many more have been attracted to this branch of art. It is regularly taught by two New York institutions, the Decorative Art Society and the Ladies’ Art Association, and has many devotees both in the East and West. Much of the work executed by these artists is highly creditable; and there is a great deal that never reaches the public eye, which is marked by both delicacy and originality.

One of the regular professional establishments is that of Warrin & Lycett, of New York. The example here given (Fig. 457) is Jersey City earthen-ware, and was painted by Mr. Warrin, who has had an experience of about fifteen years as a decorator. The colors are bright, and are very happily blended. The ground is a shade of light green, and the flowers are painted in their natural colors. At this workshop success was reached some time ago in a very delicate operation, that of transferring photographs to porcelain.

Mr. John Bennett, formerly the Director of the Faience Department of the Doulton factory at Lambeth, has within the past year settled in New York, and is now turning out decorated faience after the styles seen in the English original. He uses imported Lambeth biscuit, and has erected a kiln in connection with his studio for firing the decoration. It is his intention, in course of time, to use American clays, in order to obviate the necessity of importing biscuit, and at the same time to obtain new shapes made after his own designs. Among his best ground colors are pale yellow, pale blue,{484} and a rich brown tinged with red. The latter is very effectively used with leaves and flowers drawn over the piece in shades of green and yellow. All Bennett’s pieces have an even and brilliant glaze. After what has been said of Lambeth faience, no attempt need here be made to characterize the art represented by this ware. It will be, as indeed it deserves to be, admired; and America ought to be congratulated upon the acquisition of so good a representative of the Lambeth school of decorators.

The tile-piece at the opening of the book devoted to America (page 391) was painted by Mr. F. T. Vance, of New York. The drawing is excellent, and the design is original and decidedly meritorious. The arrangement of the figures gives a life to this and other pieces by the same artist entirely lacking in the styles of tile-painting, which consist of a repetition on each tile of the same design, or of varied but independent designs.

Mr. John M. Falconer, of Brooklyn, is an artist who has devoted himself very successfully to ceramic{485} decoration. Some of his designs on Greenpoint porcelain (see Fig. 455) are very pleasing, and the coloring is chaste and well handled. A more ambitious work is that given below (Fig. 461), an appropriate wedding-gift to an artist’s daughter. The distance toward which the bride and groom are walking is rose-hued, and the church-spire and foliage partake of the effect. Roses are strewn along the path. A heavy knotted white sash forms a curtain and encloses the scene. Above, in a lunette of dark blue bordered with white pearls, is a golden-haired Cupid holding a box of wedding-cake, with the names of the lady and gentleman on the lid. The border of the plate is a deep flat pink, with a narrow outer line of white. The plate is remarkable both as a work of art and for the delicate manner in which, as a gift, it conveys the congratulations and good wishes of the giver. Some of his works, besides the one above alluded to, are in the possession of Mr. T. C. Smith; and others, both in camaÏeu and polychrome, are entitled and owned as follows: “Independence Hall,” Rev. Morgan Dix, D.D.; “The Old Clothing Store, Boston,” Mrs. C. F. Blake; “Albert Durer’s House,” and “The Oldest House in St. Louis, Missouri,” Charles Brown, Troy, New York; “Shakspeare’s House,” Edward Green, New York; “A Smoke Fancy,” “Autumn, Montclair,{486} New Jersey,” “Church at West Point,” “Moonlit Lake,” Aaron Vail, Jr., Troy, New York; “Crescent Moon,” John Gale, Esq.; “Killearn Manse, Scotland,” Hon. M. B. Macleay, New York; “The Old Tower, Newport,” Mrs. S. P. Avery; “Across the Water,” F. A. Bridgman, Paris; “At Montreal,” George H. Boughton, London; “At Wilmington, North Carolina,” Mrs. J. P. Whitehead, Newark, New Jersey; “Old Castle, Sunset,” Alfred Jones, Yonkers, New York; “The Philosopher,” Rev. L. L. Noble, Annandale, New York; “Moonlight,” Charles Parsons, Montclair, New Jersey; landscape, and a set of two blue and one yellow vases, Hon. George B. Warren, Jr., Troy, New York. Mr. Falconer has the advantages of a cultivated taste and well-trained skill to help him win such a reputation as might induce him to substitute, even to a greater extent than at present, porcelain or pottery for the more perishable canvas.

There remains to be noticed an artistic combination in which, although it has long been practised in Europe, American workmen have recently succeeded in producing exceptionally fine effects. Reference is made to the combination of metal and porcelain.{487} We have seen with pleasure slender and exquisitely wrought stands of silver and gold, in which delicately painted French porcelain dishes and basins are converted into card-receivers, flower-stands, and fruit-dishes. A great deal of taste can be displayed in the selection of colors to suit the metal, as well as in the deeper harmony which reproduces in silver or gold the flower stems on the porcelain. Chinese porcelain, in rich colors—green, pink, and blue—is similarly treated. Pieces of the Green family are tastefully set in silver and gold, the mouldings on the bands of metal corresponding with the painted borders of the porcelain.

From such specimens of a double art we turn to others less rich, but scarcely less attractive. Faience vases are mounted in bronze and brightly burnished brass, and derive a new character from the association. Works of this class show that, while it is possible to define the limits of the field peculiar to ceramic art, its place in household decoration cannot be specified with equal precision. Already it has entered into effective alliances with the arts of the silversmith, goldsmith, the workers in the baser metals, of the enameller, the carver, and the cabinet-maker. In these several relations it is not now intended to follow it farther. They would lead to the consideration of many arts essentially distinct, and as foreign to each other as to that whose history has led us from the sun-dried bricks of Egypt to the porcelain of Greenpoint.

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Fig. 464.—Worcester Porcelain and Silver. (J. W. Britton Coll.)
Fig. 464.—Worcester Porcelain and Silver. (J. W. Britton Coll.)

{488}

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INDEX.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

ABAQUESNE, Marreot, 281.
Abraham, Copeland’s director, 383.
Abubeker, 191.
Adam, director at Vincennes, 314.
Adobes, 396.
Africa, 213, 216, 217, 241.
Agapenor, 201.
“Agate” ware, 361.
Agostino, assistant of Luca della Robbia, 253, 263.
Agyllos, 241.
Ahriman, 190.
Ainos, 163.
Akai, 161.
Alabastros, 225.
Alambra, 203.
Albany slip, 457.
Alcora, 239.
AlenÇon, 53, 317.
Alexander the Great, 190, 200.
Algeria, 216.
Alhambra, 235, 236, 247.
Ali, 191.
Alluaud, director at Limoges, 321.
Amasis, 200.
Amathus, 201, 204.
Amazon, tribes on, 417.
Ambrosio, son of Andrea della Robbia, 253.
America, 391-487
(see South America, Central America, Mound-builders, Indians, United States).
American china, 463.
American clays, 446, et seq.
American Crockery Company, Trenton, 462.
American Pottery Company, 455.
Ameya, 160.
Ammon, 85.
Amphora,—Æ, 24, 27, 90, 222, 224.
Amstel, 343.
Andrea della Robbia, 253.
Anglo-Roman pottery, 354.
Anglo-Saxon pottery, 355.
Anspach, faience, 330;
porcelain, 341.
Antonio, artist at Ferrara and Faenza, 262.
Antwerp, majolica, 331.
Aphrodite, 201.
Apostle mugs, 336.
Apries, 200.
Apulia, 221, 265, 293, 295.
Arabesque, origin of, 213.
Arabs, 189, 190, 213, 214, 217, 218, 233, et seq., 273.
Araguaya Indians, 438.
Archaic Greek vases, 229.
Arequipa, 410.
Aretine ware, 246.
Arita, 161, 172, 176, 179.
Arizona, 429, et seq.
Arsenal Pottery, Trenton, 462.
Artaxerxes, 190.
Articulated vase, 153.
Artificial porcelain, invented in Europe, 52;
classification, 55, 56, and meaning of term 57;
analysis, 61;
difficulty of its manufacture, 81;
Chinese, 122;
Persian, 122, 196;
Spanish, 238;
Italian, 265, et seq.;
French, 312, et seq.;
English, 376, et seq.;
American, 457, 458, 471, 472.
Aryballos, 226.
Arystichos, 226.
Asia Minor, 211, 213, 214, 215.
Askos, 224.
Assyria, —n, 32, 63-65, 97-102, 198, et seq., 220, 426;
porcelain, 100.
Astarte, 202, 204.
Astbury, English potter, 360;
uses calcined flint, 361.
Astbury & Maddock, Trenton, 460.
Aster decoration, 130.
Athieno, 203.
Aubry, M., director at St. Clement, 311.
Aue, kaolin of, 53, 337.
Augustus II., director at Meissen, 338.
Augustus III., director at Meissen, 338.
Auteuil, Haviland’s workshop at, 287.
Avisseau of Tours, 277.
Awadji, 171.
Awata, 167, 171.
Aztecs, 423.
Azulejos, 216, 233, 236, 239;
Minton’s, 366, 368.
BABEL, 22, 101.
Babylon, 65, 97.{490}
Babylonia, 64, 98.
Bacchus, 21, 22.
Baden, porcelain of, 340.
Bahia, 416.
Bagnall, 360.
Baireuth, 330; porcelain, 341.
Balboa, 418.
Balearic Islands, 236, 248
(see Majorca, Minorca, IviÇa).
Baltimore, Maryland, 455.
Banko-yaki, 171.
Banks & Turner, 382.
Barberini Vase, 363.
Barbin of Mennecy, 313.
Barbizet of Paris, 277.
Barcelona, 234, 237.
Barlow, Arthur, 371.
Barlow, Hannah B., 371.
Barr, Martin, Worcester, 380.
Bartlem, potter in South Carolina, 454.
Basaltes, Wedgwood’s, 364.
Battersea, 380.
Battisto Franco, 257.
Battus, 216.
Beauvais, 273.
Becker, workman at HÖxter, 341.
Belgium, 331;
porcelain, 343.
Belleek, Ireland, porcelain of, 388, et seq.
Benedetto, artist at Siena, 255.
Bengrath Oppal, director at Meissen, 338.
Bennett, John, New York, 483.
Bennington, Vermont, 457;
porcelain, 472.
Benten, 162.
Berlin, 338, 341, 342.
Bernardo Buontalenti, inventor of Medicean porcelain, 268.
Bernart, Jehan, 279.
Beverly, Massachusetts, 468.
BeyerlÉ, Baron de, 310.
Biagio, artist at Faenza and Ferrara, 262.
Bikos, 223.
Billingsley, or Beely, 387.
Bingley, Thomas, 376.
Binns, R. W., director at Worcester, 380.
Birkenhead, 375.
Biscuit, meaning of, 53.
Bis-ja-mon, 162, 163.
Bissen, Danish sculptor, 349, 351.
Bleu fouettÉ, 132.
Blois faience, 308.
Bloor, Ott & Booth, Trenton, 462.
Bloor, Robert, 379.
Bloor, Trenton potter, 460.
Blue-and-white porcelain of China, 123, et seq.;
of Japan, 126, 175.
Blue of the sky after rain, 122, 131.
Blunger, 67.
Boccaro, 119.
Boileau, director at SÈvres, 314.
Bone, enameller (Plymouth), 377.
Bordeaux, 312;
porcelain, 320.
BÖttcher, 52, 336, 337, 452.
Bourg-la-Reine, 288, 302, 303, 304.
Bow china, 377, 379, 471.
Boyle, John, partner of Minton, 366.
Bracquemond, M. and Mme., 288, 291, 295, 322.
Bradwell stone-ware, 360.
Bramelds of Swinton, 386.
Bramfield, J. and W., 376.
Brazil, 413, 414-417.
Breslau, 329.
Brewer, J. Hart, Trenton, 462, 465.
Brichard, Eloi, director at Vincennes, 314.
Bricks, 88, 89, 98, 101, 106, 220, etc.
Brick stamp, 88, 101.
Bristol pottery, 373;
porcelain, 376, 386.
Britain, Great, and Ireland, 352-390.
Brongniart, director at SÈvres, his classification, 54, 55, 315, 316, 318.
Broome, Isaac, Trenton artist, 464, et seq.
Brosely pottery, 375.
Brown, Westhead, Moore & Company, 388.
BrÜhl, Count, 338, 339.
Brussels, 331;
porcelain, 343.
Buddha, 110, 111.
Buddhism, 111, 161.
Buen Retiro, 238.
Bunsen, 85, 241.
Burroughs, G. S., Trenton, 462.
Burslem, 360;
Wedgwood at, 362.
Butler, Frank A., 371.
Byzantium, —ine, 241, 248.
Cuaballito, Peruvian, 409.
Cabuahuil, 421.
Cairo, 214.
Caistor ware, 354.
Caldas, 239.
Caldwell & Wood, 364.
Callimachus and the Corinthian order, 301.
Caltagirone, 247.
CamaÏeu, 123, 282, 333.
Cambrian Pottery, 387.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 468.
Cambyses, 29, 200.
Camillo, artist at Ferrara, 262.
Campania, 241.
Campbell, Colin Minton, 360, 368.
Capo di Monte, 268, 269, 270.
Carolina, clays, 440, 447;
works in, 454.
Carr, James, New York, 458, 463. ginternal">462.
Coxside porcelain, 376.
Cozzi, Geminiano, 269.
Crackle, 116, 120, 148, 161, 168.
Crauden’s chapel tiles, 356.
Cream-colored ware, Wedgwood’s, 363;
American, 456, et seq.
Creil faience, 306;
porcelain, 307.
Creussen stone-ware, 336.
“Crouch-ware,” 360.
Crown-Derby, 379.
Crusaders, 214, 247, 356, 357.
Cuarto Real, 236.
Cup of Tantalus, 152, 153.
Cup of the learned, 125.
Curium, 201, 204, 206, 207, 208.
Custine, Count, 310.
Customs illustrated by pottery, 26, et seq.
(see also different countries—Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, etc.).
Cutts of Pinxton, 387.
Cuzco, 400, 412.
CyfflÉ, Paul Louis, Luneville and Niederviller, 310.
Cyprus, 199, 220.
Cypselus, 241.
Cyrene, 216.
Cyrus,

190.
DAIKOKOU, 162.
Dali, 202, 206, 208, 209.
Damascus, 214, 215.
Damousse, artist, 288.
Danaus, 21.
Darmstadt, porcelain of, 341.
Darnet, Mme., 53, 317.
Davis, Isaac, Trenton, 460.
Deck, faience of, 304;
porcelain, 324, 325.
Decoration, best styles of, 44, 80, 81.
Decorative Art Society, 483.
Delaplanche, artist, 288, 292.
Delaware, Indian pottery, 438;
Kaolin, 449.
Delft, 136;
French, 311, 331, 333;
English, 358, 373, 454.{492}
Della Robbia ware, imitation, 265, 268, 366
(see Luca, Andrea).
Demaratus, 241, 242.
Denmark, 347-351.
Dennis, S., Connecticut potter, 454.
Derby porcelain, 378, 379.
Deruta, 263.
Desima, 176, 186.
De St. Criq & Company, at Creil, 307; at Montereau, 307.
Difficult ware, 168.
Dillwyn, Swansea, 387.
Dinos, 225.
Diogenes, 26, 27, 222.
Diskos, 226.
District of Columbia, Indian pottery, 438.
Doccia, La, 268.
Dog of Fo, 113, 157, 163.
Dossi Brothers, artists at Ferrara, 262.
Doulton ware, 370, et seq.;
sketch of John Doulton, 370;
artists, 371;
terra cotta, 372;
imitation, 469.
Dragons, Chinese, 112;
Japanese, 163.
Dresden, 52, 336, et seq.;
ware imitated, 381, 475.
Dubarry, or Pompadour Rose, 315, 387.
Dubois Brothers, 313.
Duesbury family, 378, 379.
Du Liege, porcelain painter, 324.
Dunkirk, 311.
Durantino, Francesco, 259.
Dutch in Japan, 164.
Dynastic colors of China, 115.
Dwight, Dr., first English porcelain, 52.
Dwight, John, potter at Fulham, 373.
EAST BOSTON, 463.
East Liverpool, 451, 452, 463.
East Trenton Pottery Company, 462.
Ebelman, director at SÈvres, 315, 316, 326.
Ecouen, chÂteau of, 281.
Egg pottery, 171.
Egg-shell porcelain, 133, 140;
French, 322.
Egypt, —ian, 20, legend, 21;
Chinese porcelain in, 25;
customs illustrated by pottery, 29-31, 89, et seq.;
porcelain, 48, 62, 92, et seq.;
glaze, 63-65, 91, 92;
symbols, 85, et seq.;
in Cyprus, 198, et seq.;
in Etruria, 243;
processes, 71, 74;
history and general reference, 82-96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 102, 103, 104, 220, 242.
Elers Brothers, 360.
“El Frate,” artist at Ferrara, 263.
El Moro, 431.
Ely tiles, 357.
Enamel, 63-65.
(See Stanniferous.)
Encaustic tiles, 366.
England, first porcelain made in, 52, 242, 352, et seq.;
tiles, 355;
lead-glazed pottery, 357;
Delft, 358;
porcelain, 376;
her debt to America, 447.
English marks in America, 445.
English porcelain, composition, 61;
history, 376, et seq.
Eraku, 179.
Etruria, 241, et seq.;
Wedgwood’s, 364.
Etruria Pottery Company, Trenton, 462, et seq.
Etruscan, 240, et seq.;
black, red, and yellow ware, 243.
Ettlinger, commissioner at SÈvres, 315.
Europe, 198.
European art, its fountains, 198.
Evagoras, 200.
FAENZA, 261, 262, 265, 424.
Faience defined, 49;
À niellure, 280;
À la corne, 282.
Falconer, John M., artist, 484, 485.
Families of Chinese porcelain, 138.
Fauquez family, St. Amand, 311;
of Valenciennes, 320.
Ferrara, 262.
“Fine style,” Greek, 230.
Flanders, faience of, 311.
(See GrÈs de Flandre.)
Flashed glaze, 133.
Flights of Worcester, 380.
Florence, porcelain invented at, 52;
its majolica, 255;
porcelain, 265.
“Florid style,” Greek, 230.
Florida, Indian pottery, 438;
clay, 446.
Flushing, Long Island, 463.
Fo, 110, 113.
Fogen, 159.
Fong-hoang, 114, 163.
Fontana family, 258.
Fontenoy vase, 23.
Forli, 262.
Fou-hi, 110.
Fouque, Joseph, 284.
Fournier, 351.
Fourniera of Limoges, 320.
France, 271-326;
ancient, 271-273;
porcelain, composition of, 60;
history, 312, et seq.
Francesco Durantino, 259.
Francesco Maria, 255.
Francesco Vezzi, 269.
Francesco Xanto, 258.
Francis I., 266.
Frankenthal, 317, 341.
Frye, Thomas, artist at Bow, 377.
Fulham settled by Dutch, 358;
stone-ware, 359, 373.
Furnaces, 74, et seq.
FÜrstenburg, porcelain of, 340, 351.
GALLIENUS, 25.
Galloway & Graiff, Philadelphia, 455.
Garducci, artist at Urbino, 258.
Garrett, partner of Copeland, 383.
Gaul, 272.
Gelanor, 21.
Geminiano Cozzi, 269.
Genghis Khan, 190.
Georgia, Indian pottery, 438;
clay, 446;
kaolin, 451.
GÉrault Daraubert, 317.{493}
Germany, pottery of, 327-330;
stone-ware, 333-336;
porcelain, composition of, 60, 336-342.
Gien faience, 309.
Ginori, Marquis Carlo, 268.
Gioanetti, Dr., founds factory at Vineuf, 270.
Giorgio Andreoli, imitator of Luca della Robbia, 253;
artist at Gubbio, 259, et seq.
Giovanni, son of Andrea della Robbia, 253.
Girolamo, son of Andrea della Robbia, 253.
Giyoki, or Gyoguy, 73, 159, 160.
Glasgow Pottery Comp any, 460, 462.
Glaze, porcelain, 60;
artificial porcelain, 61;
pottery, 63;
history of, 64, 80, 81.
Glazing, 80, 81.
Glot of Sceaux, 311.
GÖggingen, 330.
Golgoi, 203.
Goodwin, John, Trenton, 460.
Gosai, 176, 177.
Goths, 217.
GrÆco-Egyptian, 91.
Graffiti, 249;
Minton’s, 367.
“Grains of rice” work, 152, 197.
Granada, 216, 218, 233, 236.
Granite-ware, 456, et seq.
Gravant, director at Vincennes, 314.
Graybeards stone-ware, 335.
Greatbatch, D., modeller, at Jersey City, 456.
Greece,—eek, legend as to origin of pottery, 21, 22;
conquests defined, 24;
customs illustrated by pottery, 26-28, 227;
painting, 32-34, 36, 37, 221, 222, 228-232;
forms, 35, 41, 223, et seq., 264, 326;
whence derived, 90, 209-212, 219, et seq.;
glaze, 65, 222, 223, 273;
moulding and modelling, 68;
wheel, 72, 73;
furnaces, 74-76;
in Cyprus, 199, et seq.;
origin of Greek art, 198-212;
general history, 219-232;
sun-dried pottery, 220;
terra-cotta, 220;
styles, 228, et seq.;
influence in Italy, 240, et seq., 364, 365.
Jeffords & Co., Philadelphia, 455.
Jehan de Voleur, 273.
Jehovah, 21.
Jerichau, Danish sculptor, 351.
Jersey City, New Jersey, 455, 472;
decorated earthen-ware, 483.
Jewelled porcelain, SÈvres, 315;
Copeland’s, 384.
Jinmu, 158.
Joubert & Cancate, makers of porcelain, Limoges, 321.
Jou-yao, 122.
JudÆa, 103, 104.
Jullien, manufacturer at Bourg-la-Reine, 304.
Jupiter, 21.
KADOS, 224.
Kaga, 170, 175, 179, et seq.
Kagoshima, 167.
Kalpis, 225.
Kami,—ism, 20, 161.
Kandler, artist at Meissen, 337-339.
Kanoun, 226.
Kantharos, 226.
Kaolin, 51;
discovered in Saxony, 52, 337;
in France, 53;
St. Yrieix, 316;
AlenÇon, 317;
etymology, 59;
composition, 59;
how prepared, 59, et seq.;
American, 447, et seq.
Karatsu, 172.
Kato Shirozayemon, 144,

159, 160.
Kato-siro-ouye-mon, ibid.
Kean, Michael, partner of Duesbury, 379.
Keironan, 216.
Kelebe, 225.
Keller & GuÉrin, Luneville, 310.
Keramos, 22, 49.
Kiel, 347.
Kien-long, 134, 135, 138.
Kilns, 71, 74, et seq.;
in America, 463.
King-teh-chin, 112, 122, 123, 126, 133, 135, 137, 142, 150.
Kioto, 167, 171, 175, 179.
Kiri-mon, 161.
Kiusiu, 167, 172.
Korzec, porcelain of, 345.
Kothon, 225.
Kotylos, 226.
Kouan-yao, 122, 123, 127.
Kouei, 124.
Kouen-ou, 20, 116.
Koung-tseu, 111.
Koutsi fakata, 159.
Krater, 225.
Kraut, Hans, 330.
Krossos, 225.
Kuan-in, 111.
Kutani, 170.
Kyathos, 226.
Kylin, 113, 163.
Kylix, 27, 209, 226.
LA CHINA, 239.
Lacquer, 165, 181.
Ladies’ Art Association, 483.
Lafond, artist, 288, 302.
Lagynos, 224.
Lake dwellers, 327, 395.
Lambeth settled by Dutch, 358;
stone-ware, 359;
faience, 370;
school of art, 371;
artists, 371;
American, 458, 483.
Lambrequin decoration, 124.
Lamoninary, Valenciennes, 320.
Lancelle, 127.
Lang lizen, 125.
Land of Great Peace, 163.
Lanfranco Brothers, 257.
Lanfrey, FranÇois, manager at Niederviller, 310.
Lao-tseu, 111.
Lapis-lazuli blue, 132.
Larnaca, 202, 205.
Lathrop, Charles, potter at Norwich, 454.
Laughlin, Mr., East Liverpool, 451, 452.
Lauragais, Count de Brancas, 317.
Laurin, artist, 288, 302, 303, 304.
Learned, cup of the, 125.
Leboeuf and Thebaut, 307.
Leboeuf, Milliet & Co., of Creil, 307.
Leeds pottery, 374.
Leipsic, 329.
Lekythos, 225.
Lelong, Nicholas, founds Nancy, 311.
Lemire, artist at Niederviller, 310.
Levigating mills, 452.
Licou-li, 118.
Lille faience, 311;
porcelain, 313, 320.
Limoges faience, 286;
porcelain, 320;
imitated, 469;
with metal, 486.
Lindeneher, artist, 288.
Lindenir, painter at Meissen, 338.
Literature enriched by figures, 31.
Liverpool delft, 358, 374, 380.
Locker & Co., Derby, 379.
Longevity, god of, 111;
symbols, 114, 124, 163.
Longwy faience, 307.{495}
Loosdrecht, 343.
Lotus as a symbol, 85.
Louisiana, ancient, 431, 439.
Lowe, Alexander, director at Vienna, 340.
Lowestoft pottery, 375;
porcelain, 376.
Luca della Robbia, 247;
sketch of his life, 250, et seq.;
his works, 251;
the younger Luca, 253;
successors and imitators, 253, 263, 329.
Lucumon, 242.
Ludwigsburg, 341.
Luneville, 310.
Luson, Herolin, 375.
Lyman, Fenton & Co., 457, 472.
Lynch, J. and T., Trenton, 461.
MACQUOID & Co., W. A., New York, 457.
Madrid, 238, 239.
Magistrates’ porcelain, 122, 123.
Magna GrÆcia, 241, 244, 245, 246, 265, 295.
Maine felspar, 449.
Majolica, defined, 49-51;
how painted, 80, 193;
imported into Italy, 249, 254;
earliest Italian, 255;
Wedgwood, 365;
Minton, 366, 368;
Carr, 459.
Majorca, 234, 236, 248, 249, 250.
Malaga, 234, 235.
Malmesbury tiles, 355.
Malpass, William, 376.
Malvern tiles, 355.
Mancos, 433.
Mandan Indians, 430.
Mandarin vases, 135.
Manhattan Pottery, 457.
Manises, 234.
Manor-house, York, pottery, 376.
Manufacture, 66, et seq.
Marburg, 330.
Marcolini, Count, director at Meissen, 338.
Marieberg, faience of, 346, 347.
Marreot Abaquesne, 281.
Marseilles, founded by Phoenicians, 273;
faience, 285;
porcelain, 317.
Maryland Indians, 440;
felspar and quartz, 449.
Massie, Sieur, potter at Limoges, 286, 320.
Mayer, Joseph, Trenton, 462.
Mazarine blue, 132.
Mecca, Temple of, 213.
Medicean porcelain, 52, 185, 265, et seq.
Meissen, 52, 53, 337, et seq., 475.
Melchiorre, Fra, 262.
Mennecy, porcelain of, 313.
Mercer Pottery, Trenton, 462.
Mercury, 21.
Mesopotamia, 211.
Metallic lustre, 50, 65;
how applied, 80, 193, 195, 217, 233, et seq., 240, 247, 249, 254.
Mexico, 418, 421, et seq.
Meyer, commissioner at SÈvres, 315.
Mezza-majolica, 50, 249, 254.
Mikado, 158, 161, 163.
Miles, Thomas, stone-ware maker, 360.
Millham Pottery, Trenton, 462.
Millington, Mr., Trenton, 460, 461.
Ming dynasty, porcelain of, 123, 133, et passim.
Mino, 175.
Minorca, 236.
Minton & Co., Henri Deux ware, 281;
pate-sur-pate, 326;
sketch of firm, 365, et seq.;
porcelain, 382.
Minton, Herbert, 366, et seq.
Minton, Hollins & Co., 368.
Minton, Thomas, 365, 366.
Mississippi, 425, 426, 427, 430, 439.
Missouri, ancient pottery, 425, 426, 427;
Indian, 430;
kaolin, 449, 450.
Mitla, 423, 424.
Moguls in Persia, 191, 195.
Mohammed, 190, 191; tomb of, 214, 247.
Mohammed-ben-Alhamar, 235.
Moore, Joseph H., Trenton, 462.
Moncloa, 239.
“Monkey,” Brazilian, 416.
Montereau faience, 307.
Montesinos, Spanish historian, 394.
Montezuma, 423.
Moorhead & Wilson, Spring Mills, Pennsylvania, 455.
Moors,—ish, 216, 218, 233, et seq., 241.
Moquis, 436, 438.
Moreau, Marie, porcelain-maker, Paris, 313.
Moresque, 189, 234.
Moringues, 416.
Morocco, 216.
Moscow, porcelain of, 345.
Moses, James, Trenton, 462.
Moses, John, & Co., Trenton, 462.
Moulding, 68.
Mound-builders, 425-428, 438, 439, 440.
Moustiers, 283.
Muller, Danish minister, 351.
MÜller, Karl, Greenpoint, 475, 476.
Mummy figures, 93.
Murviedro, 233.
Mylitta, 202.
NAGASAKI, 176, 184.
Nagoya, 181.
Nancy faience, 311.
Nankin blue, 123, 175.
Nankin, tower of, 118.
Nantes, 312.
Nantgarrow, 387.
Naples, 238;
majolica, 264.
Natchez Indians, 430.
Natural porcelain, its ingredients, 124.
Pectoral tablets, 93.
Pelasgi, 241, 242.
Pennington, Liverpool potter, 374.
Pennsylvania, Indian pottery, 437;
kaolin, 449, 451;
china works in, 454, 458, 462.
Pensacola clay, 447.
Perrin, Mme., Marseilles, 286.
Perrine & Co., Baltimore, 455.
Persia,—n, 38, 106, 107, 130, 189-197;
in China, 130;
in Spain, 218, 238;
influence of, 198, et seq., 241, 247, 249, 254, 257, 283 (fig. 240), 297, 304, 325, 367.
Perspective in Chinese art, 150.
Perth Amboy clay, 448;
analyzed, 450;
fire-brick factory, 455.
Peru, 393, et seq.;
its history, 394;
pottery, 395, et seq.;
religion, 398;

forms, 400;
decoration, 407;
colors, 408;
customs, 409;
processes, 413, 418, 428, 430, 438.
Perugia, 263.
Pesaro, 249, 255, 256, 257.
Peterynck of Lille at Tournay, 331.
Petuntse, 51;
its composition, 59, 60.
Phiale, 223, 226.
Philadelphia stone-ware, etc., 455;
terra-cotta, 467;
porcelain, 471, 472.
Phoenicia,—ns, 199, et seq., 210, 220, 242, 243;
in Gaul, 273.
Piccolpasso, 50, 68, 76.
Pinax, 226.{497}
Pinxton, 387.
Pirota, Casa, 261.
Pisa, —ns, 218, 234, 248;
majolica, 255.
Pithakne, 223.
Pithos, 27, 222, 223, 228, 243.
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 463.
Pizarro, 395, 418.
Place, Francis, 376.
Plumbiferous glaze, 64, 65.
Plymouth, porcelain of, 376.
Poa-en-ssi, 118.
Poirel, Nicolas, 281.
Poitevin, artist, 324.
Poitou, old pottery, 273.
Poland, 345.
Pompadour, Madame de, 314; Rose, 315, 387.
Porcelain, word misapplied, 48;
definition and etymology, 51;
invented in China, 51, 121;
introduction into Europe, 51;
invention in Europe, 52;
composition, 59, et seq.;
Egyptian, 92;
Assyrian, 100;
Indian, 107;
Chinese 121;
without embryo, 140;
invented in Japan, 160, 174;
Persian, 195, etc;
porcelain and metal, 486;
(see also artificial, natural, and different countries).
Porous ware, 459, 469.
Portland vase, 363.
Portugal, —uese, 164, 239.
Poterat, Edme, 281;
his son Louis, 281, 312.
Potters’ Association, 463.
Potter’s wheel, 70, et seq.
Pottery, etymology and meaning, 49;
composition of different kinds, 62.
Pou-tai, 112, 118.
Prices, potters in New Jersey, 455.
Printing on faience at Creil, 307;
at Liverpool, 374;
on porcelain at Worcester, 380;
at Battersea, 380, 381.
Prochoos, 225.
Prometheus, 21.
Psykter, 225.
Ptolemy Claudius, 210.
Ptolemy Lagus, or Soter, 200.
Pueblo Indians, 430, 431, et seq.
Pug-mill, 67.
Pull of Paris, 277.
QUAMON, 162.
Queen’s-ware, Wedgwood’s, 363;
made in Connecticut, 454.
Quintilius Varus, 24.
Quirigua, 423.
RAFFAELLE DEL BORGO, 257.
Raku, 160.
Ramey, R. C., Philadelphia, 455.
Rato, 239.
Ravenna, 262.
RÉaumur makes “porcelain,” 313.
Reed, Bristol potter, 373.
Reflet mÉtallique. (See Metallic lustre.)
Regnault, director at SÈvres, 315, 325.
Regnier, director at SÈvres, 315.
Religion and art, 28, 31, 83, 234, 398 (see under each country).
Renard, M., modeller at SÈvres, 294.
Reticulated porcelain, Chinese, 152;
Copeland’s, 385.
Revel, 344.
RÉverend, Claude, made “counterfeit porcelain,” 312.
Rhages, 193.
Rhodes, 211, 213, 214, 215.
Rhodes, William, potter at Jersey City, 456;
at Vermont, 461;
at Trenton, 461.
Rhodes & Yates, Trenton, 461.
Rhyton, 27, 222, 225.
Ridgway, Job, potter at Shelton, 388.
Rimini, 262.
Ringler, workman at Vienna, 340, et seq.
Robert, director at SÈvres, 315.
Robert, Joseph Gaspard, artist at Marseilles, 286, 317.
Robertsons of Chelsea, Massachusetts, 459, 468, et seq.
Robinson, Liverpool, artist, 374.
Rockingham ware, 376, 386, 458, 459, 462.
Rome, 24, 240, et seq.
Roman, —s, 233, 240, et seq.;
unglazed ware, 245;
in Gaul, 272;
in Germany, 327, 328;
in England, 354.
Romulus, 244.
Rorstrand faience, 346.
Rose-back decoration, 140.
Rose family (Chinese and Japanese), 140, 141, 142, 176, 182, et seq.
Roses of Colebrookdale, 375, 387.
Rouen, 125, 281, 311, 312, 330.
Roundabout, New Jersey, 455.
Rouse & Turner, Jersey City, 456, 457.
Ruminhauy, Peruvian cacique, 405, 414.
Russia, 344, 345.
Rustiques figulines, 42, 276, 346.
SACRED axe, 124.
Sacred horse, 114.
“Sacred things,” 124.
Sadler, John, 374.
Saguntum, 233.
St. Amand faience, 311.
St. Clement faience, 311.
St. Cloud, 52;
faience, 311;
porcelain, 312.
St. Denis faience, 311.
St. John, Knights of, 215.
St. Petersburg, 344, 345.
St. Yrieix, 53, 286, 316, 317.
Saki or Sake, 170.
Salamis, 201, 204.
Salmon, commissioner at SÈvres, 315.
Salt glaze, 81;
discovered in England, 359;
used at Lambeth, 370.
Samian ware, 104, 233, 245;
in England, 354.
Sandwich, delft pottery of, 359.
Sandy Hill, New York, 468.
San Felipe, 233.
Sans, Thomas, 359.{498}
Santa Cruz del Quiche, 420, 421.
Saracens,—ic, 189, 214, 215, et seq., 233, et seq., 240, 241, 247, 248.
Sargon, 200.
Sarreguemines faience, 309;
porcelain, 309.
Sassanian dynasty, 190.
Satsuma, 161, 167-170.
Sauvage, Charles, Niederviller, artist, 310.
Savy, HonorÉ, potter at Marseilles, 285.
Saxons, 354.
Sayreville, New Jersey, 455.
Scandinavians, ancient, 344.
ScarabÆus, 85;
as signet, 92, 93.
Sceaux faience, 311.
Schaffhausen, 330.
Schelestadt, 329.
Schiites, 191.
Schist, 95.
Schnorr, John, 52.
Scotland, ancient remains, 353.
Seggars, 76.
Seidji, 179.
Seleucus Nicanor, 190.
Semi-china, 458, et seq., 463.
Seto, 159, 181.
Seville, 236, 237.
SÈvres: old paste analyzed, 61;
how porcelain is made, 67, 239, 294;
faience, 311;
Royal factory at, 314, et seq.;
copied at Strasburg, 317;
value of, 319;
pate changeante, pate-sur-pate, 326;
imitated in Switzerland, 343;
artists in Russia, 345;
imitated in Chelsea, 378;
Coalport, 387;
copied in America, 443.
Sforza family, 255, 256.
Sgraffiato, 249;
Minton’s, 367.
Shelton, stone-ware, 360;
porcelain, 386, 388.
Shintoism, 161.
Shiogun, 160.
Shiou-ro, 162, 170.
Shonsui, 144, 160, 176, 179, 185.
Shropshire, 375, 423, 424.
Toft, T. and R., English potters, 200.
Tyrrheno-Pelasgians, 242, 243.
ULYSSE of Blois, 309.
Unbaked pottery. (See Sun-dried clay.)
United States, 442-487;
materials, 446-452;
pottery, 453-470;
porcelain, etc., 455, 457, 458, 459, 461-463, 471-487.
Univalve shell, 124.
Urbino, 255, 256, 257, 258.
Utah, 432, 437.
Utzchneider & Co., 309.
VALENCIA, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238.
Valenciennes, 311, 320.
Vance, F. T., artist, 391, 484.
Van Wickle, stone-ware manufacturer, 455.
Varus, 24.
Venice, 247;
majolica, 262;
porcelain, 52, 268, 269.
Venus, temple of, 203.
Vezzi, Francesco, 269.
Vienna porcelain, 53, 340.
Villingen, 330.
Vincennes faience, 311;
porcelain, 313, 314, 320.
Vineuf, 270.
Violet, Chinese, 149.
Virginia clay, 447.
Vista Allegre, 239.
Voleur, Jehan de, 273.
Von Lang, workman at Copenhagen, 351.
Vulcan, 21.
Vulci, 241, 242, 243.
WACKENFIELD, potter at Strasburg, 286, 316.
Wagenaar, 186.
Walker & Beely, 387.
Walker, Brown, Aldred & Rickman, 375.
Wall, Dr., 380.
Wandelein, director at La Doccia, 268.
Warrin & Lycett, decorators, 483.
Washington, 24, 108, 293;
his SÈvres, 319.
Water-vessels, Peruvian, 401, et seq.
Watson, J. R., 455.
Watts, John, partner of Doulton, 370.
Wedgwood, imitation jasper-ware of, 309;
cameos of, 330;
life of, 361, 367, 374, 382;
using American clays, 446;
his fear of America, 454.
Weesp, porcelain factory, 343.
Wendrich & Son’s terra-cotta, 348.
Wheildon, T., partner of Wedgwood, 362.
Whistling jars, Peruvian, 409, 410.
White, Chinese, 145, et seq., 147, 148.
Willow-ware, 382, 387.
Winterthur, 330.
Wood, Enoch, 364.
Woodbridge, New Jersey, clay, 448.
Worcester porcelain, 379;
and silver, 487.
Wrede, Bristol potter, 373.
XANTO, Francesco, 258, 260.
Xativa, 233.
YANG, 110.
Yarmouth, 375.
Yebis, 162.
Yeddo, 181.
Yellow, imperial, 150.
Yn, 110.
Ynca, 236.
Young, William, Nantgarrow, 387.
Young, William, & Sons, Trenton, 460, 461.
Yu, 147.
Yucatan, 423, 424.
ZAFFARINO, artist at Ferrara, 263.
Zoroaster, 190.
Zuni, 431, 436, et seq.
ZÜrich, 330; porcelain, 343.

THE END.

{500}

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