116 
House & Garden 
Fascinating Pastime 
Charming Results 
The Maiolica of old Mexico 
( Continued, from page 114) 
Dfeioeo 
ART 
LAMP SHADES 
Your own Achievement 
—at home 
A LL the materials with full instructions 
Tjl —“All in an Envelope ” for making 
a beautiful lamp shade at home. Materials 
cut to exact size, ready to assemble and 
sew together. Wire frame attached. 
Fascinating work—an exquisite shade, 
professionally correct—your own achieve¬ 
ment—at about half the cost. 
Exclusive period designs in boudoir, table 
and floor lamp shades, candle shades, 
domes, shields, bed lights, night light dolls, 
and art novelties. 
A Newco Art Envelope is a Christmas 
present that will delight any woman on 
your list. Giving it, you give much great¬ 
er value than the money would buy in a 
ready made article. 
4All in an Envelope ” 
At department store,-, art Bhops and electrical stores. 
The above illustration 
shows “ The Recamier" 
( Envelope No. iqooj ) 
an exquisite boudoir 
shade made in four col¬ 
ors and three sizes. Send 
for catalog. Over JO 
designs to select from. 
Any Newco Art En¬ 
velope will be sent direct 
by Parcel Post if yout- 
dealer can't supply you. 
Full satisfaction guaran¬ 
teed or money refunded. 
BERNARD W. COWEN CORPN., NEW YORK 
Maker of Decorative Novelties to America's Best Stores 
Q-Cp 
JoTD 
have proved sufficient for an increasing 
demand. For some time after this 
oriental influence held sway with the 
Mexican maiolica decorators. This is 
particularly true of Chinese motifs. Just 
as pseudo-Chinese decoration was being 
developed by European keramic art¬ 
ists, so too did such an oriental in¬ 
fluence display itself in Mexican maio¬ 
lica, with which it held popularity till 
the close of the 18th Century. After 
that it disappeared in Mexican wares, 
except in occasional examples. 
The Mexican maiolica of the early 
19th Century followed the later Span¬ 
ish Talavera style of polychrome orna¬ 
ment, debased, it is true, but highly 
decorative. Nearly the whole period 
covered by the first three quarters of 
the 19th Century of Mexican maiolica 
found its keynote in gaudy decoration, 
though none the less interesting. 
As might be expected, the Mexican 
potters employed their greatest skill in 
the service of the church and produced 
i an extensive series of tiles for the deco¬ 
ration of the facades of ecclesiastical 
edifices. Fonts, holy-water stoups, al¬ 
tars, shrines, figurines, etc. were in 
great demand by the Mexican church- 
builders. For the rest, innumerable 
articles of domestic utility were pro¬ 
duced by the potters of old Mexico. 
Not the least interesting of the maiolica 
pieces were those made for the flower- 
loving people of this foster-child of 
Spain,—jardinieres, flower-pots, bowls, 
urns and vases, including those in the 
form of the albarelli already referred 
to. The maiolica-makers also turned 
heraldic art to good account and inset 
in the walls of many of their houses 
maiolica panels ornamented with the 
bearings of their owners. 
As to the varieties of old Mexican 
maiolica, Barber classed them as fol¬ 
lows: 
1 : Those produced before the year 
1800 in (a) the Moresque style, (b) the 
Spanish or Talavera style and (c) the 
Chinese style; 
2 : Those produced in the 19th Cen¬ 
tury in the Mexican or Pueblan style. 
These were decorated in polychrome. 
It will be noticed that the dis¬ 
tinguishing characteristic of the Mexi¬ 
can blue monochrome maiolica is that 
of the blue in relief, whereas the blues 
of the maiolica wares of Spain were 
thinly applied with no perceptible rais¬ 
ed portions on their surfaces. 
The metallic lustres found in the 
Spanish maiolica of Malaga and of 
Valencia, and the Italian lustred maioli- 
cas of Gubbio and Deruta have no 
counterpart in the maiolica wares of 
Mexico, whose fabriques appear never 
to have attemped this genre of enam¬ 
elled earthenware. 
Apropos the blue monochrome relief 
decoration of Mexican maiolica, it is 
of interest to point out that through 
the last four decades of the 17th Cen¬ 
tury the Mexican keramic decorators 
employed, as one of the several Tala¬ 
vera styles of decoration, the “Tatoo” 
patterns, which consist of placing in¬ 
numerable monochrome dark blue dots 
and dashes on an enamelled white 
ground between the main motifs of the 
decoration. 
Birds, flowers and animals appear in 
silhouette form in the decoration of 
many of the Mexican maiolica pieces 
made during the first half of the 18th 
Century. When the Chinese influence 
came in, the earliest of the pseudo-ori¬ 
ental pieces employed grounds of dark 
blue with the decorative motifs worked 
out in white reserve. This order, a 
little later, came to be reversed. Next 
oriental figures, and still later came 
the Mexican maiolica pieces decorated 
with irregular medallions of alternating 
blue on the white medallions or in 
white on the blue ones. 
Both white and red clays were em¬ 
ployed by the Mexican potters in mix¬ 
tures throughout some three centuries 
of this craft, the white clays being 
softer in body. As the different de¬ 
grees of heat to which the various 
pieces of the same clays were subject¬ 
ed simultaneously produced a decided 
difference in the tints of the glazed 
wares, one cannot go by the tint when 
determining the antiquity or the botega 
of the piece or of the natural locus of 
the clay. 
Dr. Barber has pointed out that all 
the dark blue potters’ marks appearing 
on Mexican maiolica pieces occur on 
those which were produced in the 17th 
Century, while black marks and brown 
marks fall within the period of the 
first half of the 19th. 
Unfortunately, perhaps, from the 
collector’s point of view, the old Mexi¬ 
can maiolica pieces have been imitated 
by modern Mexican potters ever since. 
Uncommon Hardy Shrubs For The Border 
(Continued from page 74) 
somed shrub of its season, for in late 
May it has many pea-like blooms. 
It is excellent as a specimen or it may 
serve as an accent in the border. Should 
be pruned only in the summer, when 
all the old wood should be removed. 
Will thrive in any good soil but prefers 
a light sandy one. 
Chinese fringe tree ( Chionanthus retu- 
sa ): 
This variety is not as well known as 
its relative C. virginiana, but it has the 
admirable quality of blooming a week 
or two earlier. It has a spreading habit, 
dark green foliage, which is rather 
coarse, and white flowers in panicles 
two to five inches long. These are 
fragrant and appear in late May. This 
shrub may be used as a specimen or an 
accent plant. Prefers sandy loam in a 
sunny position. 
Russian Olive ( Eleagnus angustifolia): 
A deciduous shrub or small tree 
which will grow to twenty feet in 
height. Has handsome silvery foliage 
and many inconspicuous flowers, which 
are very fragrant, in June. In the fall 
it has yellow fruit which is attractive 
and very decorative. It will thrive in 
any well drained soil, including lime¬ 
stone. 
Goumi ( Eleagnus longipes): 
Is another member of the same family 
which may be grown for its fruit alone, 
which is scarlet and exceptionally dec- 
(Continued on page 124) 
