242 
KERAMIC STUDIO 
THE SCHOOL OF APPLICATION OF SEVRES 
HE school of application, which has been ad- 
ded to the Manufacture Nationale de Por- 
celaine de Sevres, has completed its first 
cycle of studies lasting five years. For the 
first time since its establishment, graduates 
have left the school, and it is interesting to 
note the results of this instruction of five 
years, organized on an excellent plan. These results are 
highly satisfactory, showing that the new graduates are finished 
keramists, not only knowing how to adapt a decoration to a 
determined form or medium, but capable of carrying out their 
own original conceptions, and knowing all the secrets of the 
laboratory, as well as those of modeling and firing. The 
four graduates who left the school found immediately, well 
r> Q id positions in private factories. 
VASE (OVBRGLAZB)— TH. CADILHAT. 
There is no doubt that a school of this kind, being a part 
of the Manufacture de Sevres itself, has advantages which it 
could not find anywhere else. In the administrators for theo- 
retical and general instruction, and in the managers of the 
workrooms for practical studies, it has a personel of teachers 
which could hardly be improved. The tuition is free, the 
candidates being admitted to the school after a concourse. 
The Administration of Sevres has even created twenty 
"bourses," or funds to help support the young artists who 
seem worthy of entering the school some day. 
The first two years are devoted to preparatory instruction, 
mathematics, chemistry, design, water color, modeling, turn- 
ing, besides lectures on History of Art and History of Ker- 
amics. The students have also free access to the fine library 
of the Manufacture, and to its magnificent Museum of Ker- 
amics, the collections of which are unfortunately very little 
known by the public at large. 
During the last three years, although historical and theo- 
retical instruction is continued, technical instruction takes the 
first place. Students are no more confined to modeling vases. 
They must themselves prepare their pastes, glazes and colors, 
learn to make a piece of pottery entirely, to use the different 
processes of decoration, and to fire. They also study the con- 
struction of kilns and muffles, the questions of combustion and 
heating, so that not a part of their art is left unexplored. 
At the end of every year there is a concourse where a 
given subject must be treated by all students. For students 
of the first year the 1899 concourse was some water color 
studies after plants and animals. For the second year stu- 
dents the subject was water color studies of an umbrella stand 
and of a bath room tiling to be carried out in pottery. The 
third year students had to create a shape of a vase and to 
decorate it, and some of the pieces made at this concourse 
were truly original and good. 
The fourth year concourse was of course more important. 
Here students had to make three tea-sets, decorated by dif- 
ferent processes, one modeled in relief, another decorated 
overglaze, the third one underglaze. Among interesting work 
done at this concourse is mentioned a tea-set by Mr. Grode- 
coeur, of a very sober and graceful shape and excellent paste, 
quietly decorated underglaze with bees and small sprigs. 
The fifth year concourse, the last before the students left 
the school, offered many interesting pieces. We reproduce 
here vases by three graduates, Messrs. Lagriffoul, Cadilhat and 
Ballanger, all of fine shape, appropriately decorated, one under- 
glaze, the two others overglaze. 
The opening of the new school of Sevres will undoubtedly 
give a great impetus to the development of Keramics in 
VASE I UNDERGLAZE) — ED. BALLANGER, 
