Terra-Cotta And Luca Della Robbia Ware, Considered On The Principles Of Decorative Art.

borately wrought into so many kinds of decorative form . Ever and anon , in some of the old out-ofthe-way churches at Rome , do we catch a glimpse of some piece of burned clay work , which has been spared by the ruthless hand of the would-be Classic architects in the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries . All over Tuscany are scattered fine examples of this style , and the whole of Lombardy is full of them . In Verona they often start up before us . Pavia shows you the west front of St . Pantaleone ' s ; Cremona , its cathedral ; Monza , its town hall ; Mantuaits ducal palace ; and St .

, Andrew ' s , all rich in the splendid examples of what has been and yet may be done for architecture in its decorative members by the use of this material . Though last to be mentioned , almost the very first in importance is the great hosjiital at Milan , in all likelihood the finest specimen as a

whole beyond the Alps of what decorative burned clay can do ; and , perhaps , better still , how it should be done , as far as its manipulation goes , to bring out all its beauties . Here we find that the squeezing was but the first part of that process through which these ornaments were made to go .

Thrown out of their moulds , and while yet soft enough , they were , as needed , wrought again by hand , before being fired , aud thus had given them a softening- grace ancl a crispy sharpness which the modelling stick of an artist can alone bestow . Hereat homeAve are not without several

in-, , structive instances of our own ; and the way in which burned clay ornamentation , more especially in stacks of chimneys , was with great effect employed at Thornbury Castle , Gloucestershire , Eton College , and Hampton Court , besides other places , should not be overlooked . All over Sussex the

chimney-stacks of its homesteads attract admiring notice . Thus far , for the greatest number of samples in architectural decoration , we have wandered on the . Continent , and have pointed mostly to what may be only seen abroad . Eor specimens in higher art ,

we happily need travel no further than the wellfilled splendid halls of this museum , which will show us at a glance how burned clay , after all its manners , whether in its own native tint , or variously coloured ancl wearing a bright glaze , has been and may bewith the best resultsapplied to

, , statuary . As the subject we have before us falls of itself into two parts , we will begin it by taking in hand " burned clay , " to look at it under its first simple shape , that is , as a decorative ornament with no other than its own natural self-colouring about it .

Upon brackets round three sides of the northern court is a series , in red clay , by Tuscan artists , of no fewer than twenty-one busts ; some ideal of the saints ; the others , the portraitures of individuals most of whom , be it said , were seemingly not overwell favoured by nature with beauty and winningfeatures . All these busts show that they were done by masters' hands , and the secular ones with

such a life-like truthfulness as to let us know that if the Florentines of that time , however intellectual , were not a handsome race , those men who fashioned their likenesses in clay did not stoop to flatter them , nor lower their noble art to adulation . The busts of holy personages exhibit rather a naturalistic than a lofty type of the outward beautiful .

While on the subject of busts , it might seem an ungracious omission were I not to bring to mind three very remarkable ones exhibited amid the Loan Collection , brought together in this Museum during the ever-to-be-remembered year 1862 . One of these busts represented Lorenzo the

Magnificent , ancl now belongs to Lord Taunton ; the other two , the property of Mr . J . C . Robinson , gives us the portraitures of the father and mother of the Emperor Charles V . The Medici bust I look upon as one of the two most remarkable ones the worldancient and modernever saw . The

, , other is that of Caracalla . This Roman emperor ' s frowning effigy shows us the man inside and out . Upon his brow the murderer's brand is furrowed , and in that dark scowl of his we seem to see him

as he bent his head and listened to the screeches of his dying brother Geta , as with his own hand he dealt him the last death-stab : aptly is CaracahVs bust called by some the last sigh of the arts . Though the mark of Cain is not upon the forehead of Lorenzo's , there is that in its face , its

leering eyes , its determined mouth , that crooked sneering nose , which makes us think this head would be no unfitting frontispiece to an edition of Machiavelli's book , " II Principe . " In each of Mr . J . C . Robinson ' s two busts we discover much individuality and character—mild , elevated ,

prepossessing-, but tlie features are a little idealized and nicely rounded . Though brought into this country from Belgium , I make no doubt these fine busts originally came from the south of Spain , where for some time there existed a splendid , school of artmany chief masters of which wrought

, , and wrought admirably , in burned clay ; and such works are little or nothing known to Englishmen . Arranged upon the sides of four laz-ge square stands , somewhat in the middle of this court , are , along with one valuable bust of a friar , several fine examples of whole though small figures , as

well as subjects in low relief , almost all of a sacred character ; and one of them—a monk at his studies —a most remarkable and very precious work .

To these recesses on the north of this court , must we go , however , to behold some among the most daring ancl instructive productions of hi gh art , left us by the great old masters in burned clay . One of the earliest to work in clay of any sort ,

spoken of by Vasari , is Jacopo della Querela , so called from the name of his birthplace , in the neighbourhood of Sienna , A . D . 1874 . Telling of this sculptor , he says : — " The Sienese , deeply lamenting the death of their captain , ( Giovanni