222 
ftERAMIC STUDIO 
scripts, nearly every thing was of local ownership. Antique 
furniture, old jewelry, silver and lace, Japanese prints and 
curious musical instruments, — of all these things there was 
wealth unlooked for. 
No department, however, was finer than that devoted 
to old china. Here, as elsewhere the rule was not quantity 
but quality. Doubtful pieces were not admitted, and few 
duplicates. Even so, it was impossible to find room for all 
of the fine pieces that were offered. 
The Germann Collection contained about one hundred 
pieces formerly the property of George III, which have 
come down to the present owners from an ancestor who was 
Bailiff of Windsor Park, during the last years of the eighteenth 
century. Old Worcester and Sevres, with their scarcely 
humbler companions, made up a collection so notable that 
it may ultimately become the property of the city. 
Decorators of china who are prone to overload could 
have no better object lesson than the gold and white Sevres 
formerly owned by Napoleon III, or the delicate cup with 
simple bands of pink and green and gold, bearing the crest 
of Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico. 
Of still greater historic interest was a platter from the 
set presented to Washington by officers of the French fleet. 
In the center of the blue bordered oval, was painted the 
insignia of the Order of the Cincinnati. Washington 
pitchers and plates commemorating the early history of our 
country, seemed things of yesterday, beside old Delft tiles 
whose soft blue and creamy white proclaimed their age. 
Two placques of Capo di Monte bore youthful likenesses of , 
Marie Antoinette and Louis the Dauphin. A teapot with 
braided handle and other choice pieces of Lowestoft; Delft 
hot water plates, copper and silver lustres, curious Italian 
faience, delicate Chelsea, a Bow figurine; — all these claimed 
attention. But for china to live with, and use and enjo3^, 
nothing surpassed the Meissen. It is a pity that for table- 
ware, our decorators do not work more along those lines. 
The exhibition was most successful from all standpoints. 
It was educational; it made scores of new friends for the 
Arts Guild; and the profits will serve as the nucleus of a 
fund to erect a permanent fine arts building in St. Paul. 
1? -P 
UNDERGLAZE PAINTING 
F. Alfred Rhead 
(concluded) 
The painting of a snow effect — studied from my studio 
window — struck me as peculiarly decorative and Japanese 
in character, if not in method of execution. 
I made the study with a vieAV to its execution in under 
glaze colors on drab tiles, so I did it on drab tinted paper 
answering to the tone of the tiles on which I proposed to 
paint it. I saw, too, in it, a. decorative motif which had 
not been worked to death, and I made two designs, as an 
object lesson, keeping closely to the motif suggested. It 
will be seen from these drawings, that the most unlikely 
subjects present opportunities for decoration of an original 
character. Nature, after all, is the best designer, and a 
close adherence to its suggestions will always give far 
better results than the trickiest "ringing of changes" on 
popular decorative "properties". 
Snow is alway difficult to paint. On the one hand, 
there is a danger of getting it leaden and dirty, and on the 
other hand there is the risk of going to the opposite extreme 
and getting it hard and garish. "White as the driven 
snow" is a poetic phrase, but like many other poetic phrases, 
it is misleading. Snow (at any rate for the painter's pur- 
poses) is never white. It must appear white certainly, 
and the snow in the drawing does appear white, although 
there is really not a touch of pure white pigment in the 
whole drawing, a bit of white paper put on any portion 
will prove this.* 
Another paradoxical fact. Snow must look cold, 
yet cold tones must not be used in painting it. All the 
white must be faintly warmed with yellow, and the greys 
in the shadows must be warm, and not cold greys, or the 
effect will be leaden, plastery, and otherwise unnatural. 
It is the most piquant instance of what Ruskin calls 
"the faculty of seeing true color." There are no pure 
primary, or even secondary hues in nature. Of course, 
if you take a brilliant scarlet flower, and compare it with 
scarlet pigment, it will be found that no tint prepared by 
the chemist can hold its own in brilliancy with "nature's 
vermeil dyes," but it is easy to remember that all colors 
become modified by the atmosphere the moment they are 
removed even a yard away from the point of vision and no 
object should be painted as being nearer than five or six 
feet away. 
The warm greys in the snow are the'drab color of the 
ground left untouched. The distance and parts of the 
background are also the drab of the ware with a few washes 
of a lighter opaque grey, intensified nearer the spectator. 
The bluish reflected lights are done with a mixture of 
about two parts of matt blue to one of orange. This is 
the general grey for the shadows to all white objects. If 
it is needed warmer, a little more orange is added, if colder, 
more blue. If a slightly violet tone is needed for the greys 
add a little pink. It may be graduated up to pure white 
by the admixture of white as needed. Almost any tone 
of grey may be obtained by this simple mixing. Impasto 
painting in underglaze colors should be done in exactly 
the same way as oil painting. The shadows (generally) 
should be kept transparent, and the lights opaque. 
The shadows should be painted first, and the lights 
painted into them. By this means blending and softening 
of tones and shades is assured, and the drawing is kept 
'firm and pure. If shadows are painted after the high 
lights are done, the result is blurred and slovenly. Paint 
firmly your darkest tones first, and graduate up to the 
lightest. No dark tones should be put in afterwards, ex- 
cept possibly a few selected touches for emphasis. Some- 
times it may be necessary to "glaze" or put a thin wash 
of local color over some of the light parts after they are 
dry, but on the whole, it is better if the work is done spontan- 
eously and decisively. 
The light parts of the snow in the panel should be done 
with white stained with the tiniest portion of yellow. 
The white must not be yellow or yellowish but rather 
warm, or "creamery" white. This rrmst be done with a 
broad, flat soft brush — camel hair or sable, perfectly clean 
and just dipped in lavender oil or any other medium, and 
worked flat on a clean tile.^The brush is not to be dipped 
in the color, that is to say, it must not be filled with color, 
but a little color should be scooped from the heap (which 
should be about as stiff and smooth as oil color) as though 
taking it on the end of a chisel, and applied plumply and 
solidly on the ware.^The shading is done by taking up a 
little color on one side or corner of the flat brush, and a 
dip of oil on the other corner. By drawing this lightly 
over the tile, it will be found to give automatically a grad- 
uated shadow. V^The strokes should be tested on the color 
*The printing of these snow studies on cream paper somewhat spoils the 
effect. (Ed.) 
