CERAMIC WARE. 239 



The admirer of painted pottery, not being a chemist, little 

 knows the difficulties under which the painting of Ceramic 

 Ware has to be accomplished. The artist in oil- or water- 

 colours, operating on canvas or paper, sees his colours all 

 before him. He lays on these colours as he wishes them to 

 remain. Less favourable are the conditions under which an 

 enamel or porcelain painter works. He has to paint away, 

 so to speak, in the dark. Not one of the colours he lays on 

 is such as, after burning, it will be. His pigments, at the 

 moment of laying on, are either no pigments at all, or their 

 colours are veiy different from what they will be when the 

 labours of his pencil are committed to the furnace. These 

 being the conditions under which he prosecutes his art, the 

 wonder is that the tints ultimately produced are so true to 

 nature. Even on canvas or paper, flesh-painting is the most 

 difficult of all. On Ceramic Ware the difficulties of flesh- 

 painting are, of course, much greater; nevertheless, the results 

 leave but little to be desired if a competent artist has been 

 employed. All the higher varieties of colour ornamentation 

 on pottery are effected by the pencil; but the process of 

 transfer is adopted when results of moderate excellence only 

 are aimed at. 



I have referred to glazing. This is accomplished by 

 dipping into the glaze material, whatever the latter may be 

 at least, usually. The result of dipping is as follows : the 

 surface of the piece is covered with a thin film of glaze 

 material, which, on burning, distributes itself all over the 

 piece in a transparent glassy film. 



In regard to the glaze, that employed for the finish of 

 hard porcelain is nothing else than finely-levigated felspar; 

 but the glaze of soft porcelain and English bone earthenware 

 always holds a portion of oxide of lead, a material w r hich 

 fuses at a lower temperature than felspar alone. 



In treating of the general process by which glazing is 

 accomplished, the reader was given to understand dipping 



