408 THE WEDGWOODS. 



which will represent so many of the industrial processes of the 

 modern manufacture of pottery. It was originally intended by us 

 that those subjects should be modelled and coloured in the manner 

 of Delia Robbia. But as the expense of producing in this case 

 would form a very serious item, and make a large inroad on the 

 whole sum allotted to us for cur design, we were very reluctantly 

 compelled to abandon the idea of carrying out this feature in relief, 

 and resort to painting the same subjects on the flat. It would be 

 a matter of congratulation to us if we could hope that the intro- 

 duction of the Delia Eobbia ware would ever be practicable at 

 some subsequent time before the work is actually undertaken. 

 When we consider, however, the secondary object for which the 

 ceramic design is conceived, there is one argument which should 

 probably reconcile us to these subjects being painted on the flat as 

 compared with the modelled treatment. If the Wedgwood building 

 is to serve as a pattern card, so to speak, of the uses to which 

 modern pottery can be put in architecture, and of the market 

 prices at which it can be produced, it is no doubt desirable that all 

 the ceramic work should be of a kind and be introduced in such a 

 manner as will best answer to the modern notions of economy in 

 building. In regard to this particular feature of our design such 

 a result will no doubt be best obtained by having this frieze of 

 subjects manufactured in numbers of flat pieces, as tiles, rather 

 than in large modelled and moulded slabs, which would necessarily 

 be much more costly in the process of making and in the risk 

 of firing. 



" The windows of the ground floor are proposed to be decorated 

 with buff coloured terra-cotta, in various modelled designs, some- 

 what after the type of the windows in the great court of the 

 Hospital at Milan. The space contained within the arched 

 window head will be filled with red Mansfield stone, to serve as a 

 framework, or background, for richly coloured portraits of the most 

 celebrated potters of ancient and modern times, and also on the side, 

 elevations of Flaxman, Brindley, Bentley, and other distinguished 

 contemporaries of Wedgwood. These portraits will be painted in 

 majolica colours on large circular plaques, and the remainder of the 

 space, or spandril, outside of them, will be in enamel mosaic. 



" The porch, or front entrance to the building, is designed to 

 form a central object on the ground floor.. Varieties of ceramic 

 material are employed in its principal parts. The shafts on each 

 side of the door, which carry the archway over the entrance, will 

 be fluted in buff terra-cotta, and the flutes filled in with rich 



