lO 
RERAMIC STUDIO 
With a more modest exhibit, the factory of Pilkinton had 
beautiful majoHcas due to the supple talent of Mr. Lewis F. 
Day and to the cultivated mind of Mr. Walter Crane, but the 
works of faience makers were not what we were looking for. 
Minton had not thought advisable to send again the pates 
of application of Solon, which in their transfer to the opaque 
English porcelain had lost all the precious qualities which 
they owed to the French porcelain. And if Staffordshire had 
been represented, we would not have found there any of the 
new technical processes. 
Italy, as if exhausted by its antique creative genius, de- 
lighted in the repetition of the past, the exact copies of the 
Lucca della Robbia, Urbino, Faenza, Caffaggiolo and other 
wares which have a glorious page in the history of ceramics 
but nothing in common with the art of modern pottery. 
hard porcelain of remarkable plasticity, were grand feu deco- 
rated with a charming taste, which made a singular contrast 
to the fireworks of its neighbors. The colored pates of the 
Hungarian factory of Herend were also in the very best taste. 
Saxony, so flourishing at the birth of porcelain, persisted 
in shutting itself in the style of a past century. Let us respect 
its lethargy. 
The Royal Manufactory of Berlin (Charlottenburg) had 
brought master pieces of painting. Thinking that the paint- 
ings of Sevres had been given up because they were not 
original, it had asked for cartoons from celebrated artists in 
order to display the virtuosity of its decorators. How useless 
all this pictorial effort which could have been more success- 
fully treated, and at less expense, on a canvas applied to the 
wall. Around a vast composition surmounting a monumental 
Berlin. Porcelain mantel-piece, overglaze painting. 
Russia had exhibited a few grand feu pieces, among them 
some pates of application, which proved that the Manufactory 
of the Czar took formerly its inspirations from Sevres, and 
some landscapes and decorations in the Copenhagen style, 
which showed it following now in the path of the Danish star. 
Other Russian factories had remained, for commercial 
reasons, indifferent to the application of the new processes. 
Austria and Hungary had spared nothing to affirm their 
partiality for gaudy tones in the decoration and gilding. 
Their loaded pieces dazzled the eye without charming. It is 
so difficult to put on little and just where it is needed. But 
in the midst of this showy exhibit there was a pearl, the fac- 
tory of Pirkenhammer, near Carlsbad. All the pieces, in a 
mantel-piece were large or small ornaments exalting the rococo 
Louis XV or the heavy romantic style of 1830. Fortunately 
the eyes and the mind rested on a few flamm^s and crystallized 
vases, which, timidly placed behind during the first months of 
the Exposition, were brought to the front toward the end, 
and on some pates of application on pink ground, of a great 
character, which will have, we are sure, a good and strong in- 
fluence on future ceramics in Germany. This glimpse of red 
pearls drawn from the kilns gave us courage and we saluted 
this large composition, a master piece of technical skill, satis- 
fied that it would be in Berlin the testament of porcelain 
decoration as practiced in the century just ended. 
Japan replaced art by cleverness. Few pieces in this 
