IVORY CARVINGS 71 



The ivory carvers of Dieppe in France long enjoyed an 

 altogether special reputation. During the seventeenth and 

 most of the eighteenth centuries the art was cultivated here 

 with pronounced success, its practice being in many cases 

 handed down from father to son, but the prosperity of the 

 ivory carvers gradually declined toward the close of the 

 eighteenth century. The financial distress immediately 

 preceding the French Revolution, and the disturbance of all 

 industrial enterprises caused by that terrible political up- 

 heaval, had much to do with this; added causes are alleged 

 to have been the production of so many beautiful objects in 

 porcelain, and the introduction into France of the quaint 

 Chinese ivories, which caught the popular fancy and were 

 preferred to the formal and traditional art of the Dieppe 

 carvers. Indeed it must be confessed that the art here had 

 become too mechanical, a mere copying and reproducing of 

 the older models, which when first produced could lay claim 

 to no small share of originality. By the early part of the 

 nineteenth century the lowest point had been reached, and 

 the few ivory carvers who still exercised their art in Dieppe 

 found it difficult to dispose of their product. Now, however, 

 a change occurred, English tourists began to frequent the 

 country, and what had lost its charm for the French appears 

 to have appealed to their taste; they bought freely and paid 

 well. This revival was quite rapid, so that by 1832 much of 

 the lost ground had been recovered. At this time the three 

 best ivory carvers, who had their establishments in the 

 Grand 'Rue of the city, were MM. Bland, Flammand, and 

 Thomas. Among other quaint forms of carving practised 

 here at this time were the magic balls, so favoured by the 

 Chinese, as many as twelve, one within the other, and en- 

 tirely separated from each other, being carved out of a single 

 sphere of ivory.* 



*Vitel, "Histoire de Dieppe," Paris, 1844, pp. 341-343. 



