ORNAMENTAL EABIMMTWARE.
A certain noble Lord possessed an old plate. not of silver or gold, but earthenware, of the rare old Italian kind called Majolica, made three hundred years ago, when really good artists, the Herberts and Dyces and Copes of their day, were not ashamed to paint on plates and dishes;. this plate once caught the cute eye of a dealer and the result was, that his Lordship was so tickled with the idea of getting a hundred pounds for a plate that he let the dealer take it away with him. In the cele- brated Soulages collection there are several pieces of a similar kind that would command very high prices—even to some hundreds of pounds. We all know, or at least every one who looks into old curiosity shops should know, that those rare works of art have for some time past been so cleverly imitated by French artizans, that the best judges have been decayed; in this case, however, the defects have been copied as well as the beauties. But there is an imitation of an honest kind, which promises in the hands of our well known and very able ceramic manufacturers, Messrs. Minton, not only to be a revival of the long lost art, but to go beyond the reach of poor Bernard Palissy. We have always looked with great interest to this development of Eng- lish pottery, in the belief that it was an admirable field for the art workman, and one that was certain to gain upon the public taste. Such is our hopeful opinion for the future of this branch of art manufac- ture, that we expect to see it bring more ornamental aid in form and colour to-architecture than even Luca della Robbie could give. We remember some noble cisterns in the style of the Majolica, shown by Messrs. Minton at the Manchester Rvhibition; and now we observe they are making some exceedingly good fruit plates in the style of Palimy ware. The celebrated Soulages ewer and stand, valued at some hun- dreds of pounds, has also been reproduced, we may say, and may be bought for a few guineas. Most of the principal shops now contain some specimens of the modern Majolica, and at Phillips's, in Oxford Street, there is a very beautiful pair of fruit tazzas, about two feet high each, formed by a figure supporting the tazza, one a bacchante, the other a satyr, copied from two figures by Clodion' whose charmingly graceful figures in terra cotta are so well known. The figures are very success- fully modelled, and the colour given by the glaze has a very rich effect, though we hope to see great improvements in coloured glazes ere long. Who knows but we may find out the great secret of the splendid ruby and golden lustre, a secret buried in the grave of the last of the descend- ants of Maestro Giorgio.
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