MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 103 



sewing-machine. "When the lady becomes tired of playing at sewing, she 

 may change her foot to the other pedal, open the melodeon part, and discourse 

 music. The price of these contrivances is $200. 



CHEAP PICTURES. HOW MADE. 



A recent article hi Chambers' Journal gives the following interesting ac- 

 count of an extensive branch of business now carried on in England, viz. : the 

 manufacture of cheap oil-paintings, or paintings on glass. " It was about the 

 tune of Hogarth's death that some ingenious fellow, with an excellent eye to 

 business, hit upon the mode of manufacturing those paintings on glass which 

 for more than three-score years have deluged the country, and which even 

 now are sold hi considerable quantities, though the traffic in them has de- 

 clined, according to the testimony of a rather extensive manufacturer, to less 

 than one twentieth of what it was within his recollection. These paintings, 

 which the reader will immediately call to remembrance, are nearly all of two 

 uniform sizes 14 inches by 11, or 14 niches by 22. They are what they 

 profess to be oil-paintings on glass ; and having an undeniable title to this 

 description, they took amazingly with the common people, and sold in im- 

 mense numbers. "We may form some notion of the traffic from the fact that 

 it is hardly possible even now to walk through a village or market-town 

 without seeing them exposed for sale, or to enter the cottage of a poor man, 

 or the farmer's kitchen, without finding a pair of them, and it will be oftener, 

 half a dozen, hanging on the walls. The smaller size predominates, the 

 larger ones being comparatively rare a circumstance which may be ac- 

 counted for by their liability to fracture, the cheapest and thinnest glass being 

 invariably used. Viewed at a little distance, they have a striking resem- 

 blance to old oil-paintings. They have all dark rich back-grounds are mostly 

 on sacred subjects show strong contrasts of light and shade, and but a small 

 variety of tints, for a reason which will be obvious presently. A slight blow 

 cracks the thin glass, and then they are ruined, until the peddler comes round 

 with a duplicate of the same subject, and for a couple of shillings or so, makes 

 all right again. "We must not omit to notice one peculiarity in these glass- 

 paintings. Though their number is legion, and their designs almost endless 

 in variety, yet these are all, or nearly all, the property of the manufacturers. 

 It is rare, indeed, that one meets with an instance of piracy from the works 

 of living artists, or even of copies from standard or classical works the only 

 exceptions being hi the case of single heads, such as Madonnas and Ecce 

 Homos. It is but fair to state, however, that this recommendatory fact is not 

 attributable to the honorable independence of the manufacturer we shall not 

 call him artist so much as to the necessities of his trade, which drive him to 

 the use of the simplest design and the fewest possible tints, in order to make 

 the more profit. Most of these pictures are made in London, and the manu- 

 facturer generally has recourse to some struggling artist for his design, who, 

 for a couple of guineas or so, will supply him with what he wants ; and he 

 can get the engraving done for even less. 



The manner in which these paintings are produced is a mystery to all but 

 the initiated ; it is a riddle even to the practical artist : and it is possible that 



