Chapter 2

SIR HENRY COLE, K.C.B.enlarge-image

SIR HENRY COLE, K.C.B.

In 1854 the first report of the newly-established Department of Science and Art was laid before Parliament. It was a Blue-book of 642 pages—so much being required for those interests of the country to which the Board of Trade had, in 1836, devoted the half of one page. This report and those which followed bore witness that a new enthusiasm had arisen in England for recoveringits lost arts; but they increasingly proved also that the collections evoked from their hiding-places were already overflowing Marlborough House. In one sense this overflowing was of signal advantage, for it enabled the department to send a collection of four hundred beautiful specimens as a circulating museum through the provincial cities and towns—a plan which has been maintained by the museum, and also by the National Gallery of Fine Arts, with excellent results. The commissioners had not at that time, so far as their reports show, any notion of localizing the various schools of science and art at South Kensington. Indeed, no such expression as “South Kensington” had existed until 1856, when Earl Granville so christened the “Brompton Boilers,” which the government had empowered Mr. Cole to prepare for the transfer of the Marlborough House collection (voting £10,000 for the purpose), and which, with their three boiler-shaped tops, still stand as the seed-shell of the museum. It was little supposed then that the “Mr. Huxley” whom the report of 1856 speaks of as employed to collect specimens on the coast would ever be seated as he is now in a palatial science school at Kensington. There must, however, have been some very far-seeing eyes looking at things in those days, for the commissioners of the great Exhibition of 1851 persuaded the government to add to the Exhibition surplus of £170,000 enough to make £300,000, and to invest the sum in the vast Kensington Gore estate. This estate comprised between twenty-five and thirty acres of land, twelve of which belong to the museum, and has become the site of a great metropolis of science and art. The museum was opened on June 22d, 1857, by the Queen, accompanied by the Prince Consort and the Heir Apparent.

The removal of the collections of Marlborough House to South Kensington, and the establishment of the new movement in a centre of its own, with room to grow, was speedily followed by a grand event, namely, the donation by Mr. Sheepshanks of his superb collection of pictures to the nation. Mr. Sheepshanks supplies to gentlemen who wish to benefit the public about asgood an example as they can find in modern annals. For many years he had welcomed artists to study and copy in the gallery opening from his dining-room, which so many of them now remember as an oasis in the wilderness which surrounded them in the last generation. But the owner of this gallery had observed that the Philistines of Parliament were still very strong: they had once refused to accept even a valuable collection of pictures (as already stated) from unwillingness to house them; and although they had got beyond that, and thankfully accepted the Vernon Gallery, he saw that the arrangements for giving shelter to this gallery were made very slowly. The National Gallery had a large portion of its Turner and its Vernon bequests housed at South Kensington, and a much larger portion of them hid away in its crypt, for twenty-five years, awaiting the hour when England should find out the magnificent works of which it is the heir, by seeing them on the new walls completed in 1876. Mr. Sheepshanks resolved to see his gallery—which was worth even then a hundred thousand pounds—attended to while he was yet alive. He offered his pictures to the country on the following conditions: that a suitable building should be erected at Kensington (which would remove them from the dust and smoke of the city); that they should never be sold; must be open to art students, and at times to the public; and that the public, especially the working-classes, should be permitted to view the same on Sunday afternoons. The government assented to all of these conditions except the last, and Mr. Sheepshanks was reluctantly compelled to add to that provision the words, “it being, however, understood that the exhibition of the collection on Sundays is not to be considered one of the conditions of my gift.”

Having thus summed up the history of the museum, it remains for me to consider its three aspects: (1) as to architecture and decoration; (2) its collections of objects; (3) its educational or art training method and character.

The accompanying map will show the series of buildings at South Kensington. There exists to the west of ExhibitionRoad a park of about ten acres, holding at the north the Royal Albert Hall, at the south the Museum of Natural History, and between these, on either side, the long line of arcade buildings containing the National Portrait Gallery, the Indian section, Naval Museum, Patent Office, the Museum of Scientific Apparatus, and, in addition, spacious halls for the display of machinery during exhibitions, for horticultural shows, and Mr. Frank Buckland’s methods of pisciculture. Such a collection of museums, answering the varied needs of science and art, cannot be found elsewhere—even within the limits of a nation. The gardens adjoining this series of buildings are beautifully adorned with statues and fountains, and will remain in the future, as they have been in the past, a favorite promenade, entered from Albert Hall and its extended galleries, in summer always bright with flowers, with music, and gay companies.

SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM—GROUND PLAN.enlarge-image

SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM—GROUND PLAN.

DIAGRAM SHOWING GLITTER POINTS IN A PICTURE-GALLERY.enlarge-image

DIAGRAM SHOWING GLITTER POINTS IN A PICTURE-GALLERY.

The building containing the courts was designed by the lateCaptain Fowke, of the Royal Engineers, and, I believe, there is no other building in this country more adapted to its purpose. The task assigned Captain Fowke was to build a picture-gallery eighty-seven feet long by fifty wide, with two floors, the upper to be lighted from above, and the lower open to the light from side to side, and to make the whole as near fire-proof as possible. The building is thirty-four feet above the ground-line to the eaves, and fifty to the ridge, and consists of seven equal bays, twelve feet in length and of the width of the building. The upper floor contains four separate rooms, two of forty-six by twenty feet, the others of thirty-five by twenty feet, lighted entirely from the roof, and giving a wall space of 4340 square feet available for hanging pictures. The lower floor is thrown into two unequal rooms of forty-six by forty-four feet and thirty-five by forty-four feet, each having a row of piers along the centre, the play of light from side to side being thus nearly unimpeded. Thus the upper floor has no windows, but as much wall space as possible, while the lower has no walls, but piers, as is demanded for the exhibition of objects in cases. The roof is double glazed, and the rule of lighting is that the height and width of the gallery should be the same, and the skylight half of the same. This renders it always easy for the spectator to avoid the glitter point on a picture, as may be seen by the accompanying diagram. The glitter point, altering with the position of the beholder, is at B, nine feet from the floor, when the beholder is at E2, or five feet from the wall; and the glitter descends to C,seven feet from the floor, when the beholder advances to E3. But if the spectator can recede to fifteen feet, the wall has no glitter up to thirteen feet. The skylight at South Kensington is brought as near as is consistent with avoiding glitter, and is twenty feet nine and a half inches from the floor. Just below the skylight run horizontal gas-pipes, with fish-tail burners projecting on two-inch brass elbows, and the light at night is as nearly as possible the same as in the day. When the gas was first put in this building there occurred an interesting controversy concerning the effect of gas on pictures, which elicited a valuable statement, jointly signed by Faraday, Hofmann, Tyndall, Redgrave, and Fowke, who had been appointed as a commission of inquiry, to the effect that coal-gas is innocuous as an illuminator of any pictures, if kept at a sufficient distance above them to avoid bringing into contact with the pictures the sulphuric acid caused by its combustion (22½ grains per 100 cubic feet of London gas).

In the large courts electric lamps are now used with much success. It is wonderful to note the beauty of porcelain and all objects of delicate decoration under the new light; it brings out the minute traceries better than daylight.

Security from fire here has been made as nearly absolute as possible, and Sir Philip Cunliffe Owen believes it impossible by any device to fire the museum; yet the water arrangements and vigilance at South Kensington are as complete as if the building were built of the ordinary materials. As a matter of fact, the choice of materials was made after long and patient scientific experiments. The main material is the best gray stock brick, with ornamental work of certain blue, red, and cream-colored bricks peculiar to some English counties. Some iron it was, of course, necessary to use for joists and girders, but in every case this iron has been isolated by being surrounded with a thick fire-proof concrete. The floor is of Minton tiles imbedded in Roman cement. The double roof is Mansard, and covered with a French tile (tuile courtois), selected at the Paris Exhibition of 1855.

SIR PHILIP CUNLIFFE OWEN, DIRECTOR OF SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM.enlarge-image

SIR PHILIP CUNLIFFE OWEN, DIRECTOR OF SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM.

The picture-gallery described above, made to hold the Sheepshanks collection, has had additions made behind it, in accordance with the original plan, of three large rooms, which contain various collections of pictures, and near the back entrance to these is the gallery of Raphael’s cartoons. All this series of picture-galleries constitutes an upper floor of a wing to two vast double show-rooms. One of these is a large square apartment, in which large numbers of marble and other antique monuments are displayed. The other, connected with it, is architecturally divided by slender pillars—between which, as an avenue, are show-cases, above and below—into two noble rooms with splendid arched ceilings. The first-named of these rooms (that whichis without division, and single-roofed) has not yet received its wall decorations, which are to be a distemper half-way up, and above, a frieze of frescoes large as Raphael’s cartoons. The other show-room—with the double-arched ceiling—furnishes, as may be imagined, fine opportunities for wall decoration, as also for the ornamentation of floor and ceilings. The decoration here has not been completed, but it has gone far enough for the scheme to be judged by its effect.

And it is just here that a careful criticism is necessary. While the purely architectural work merits all the praise that can be claimed for it, securing an admirable play of light, making each division add its light to the other, and reducing the space occupied by pillars and other accessories to a minimum, the decorations are but measurably successful. The faults are due, I think, to the intention that the ornaments themselves should present some of the features of a collection of styles. The result proves that it would be better if the varied styles were exhibited in a court set apart for the purpose. The floor, for example, is rich in its varieties of tiles, there being some five or six of different designs and shades. It is true that the great central floors are made of tiles of uniform design and color, and that these—a deep brick red, with small green spots at the corners of each tile—are grave and good; but all around, where we pass through arch or door, there is a deep fringe of brilliant tiles, which are reflected into the glass cases nearest them, to the injury of the objects shown; and in the series of “cloisters,” as the spaces beneath the picture-gallery may be called, there are further experiments in floor tiles which militate against the effect of the articles exhibited in them. The ceilings in these cloisters, or side spaces, have been covered with Oriental decorations by the late Owen Jones; they are Indian, Persian, moresque, and of the greatest beauty, each coffer in the ceiling and each archway presenting a new design, and yet all in harmony: these being too far above the show-cases to affect any objects in them, are rightly placed; but the floor, as the necessary background to many objects in the rooms—many of which depend on delicate shadesof color for their effect—will eventually, I suspect, have to be reconstructed, and made entirely of the grave hue which has happily been already adopted for the greater part of it. Ascending a little above the floor, it must be said also that there is too much brilliancy about the lower arches and their spandrels—too much white and gold. It is not only that this does not give a sufficiently subdued background for the bright glass or chased metals in the upper parts of the cases (on the ground-floor), but they are by no means the best supports for the grand series of life-sized figures in mosaic, on deep gold surfaces, which make the magnificent frieze of the upper wall.

NORTH COURT, NORTH-WEST CORNER, SHOWING CASTS OF THE BIGA (OR TWO-HORSE CHARIOT), FROM THE ORIGINAL IN MARBLE AT THE VATICAN, AND OF THE PULPIT BY GIOVANI PISANO, FORMERLY IN THE CATHEDRAL AT PISA.enlarge-image

NORTH COURT, NORTH-WEST CORNER, SHOWING CASTS OF THE BIGA (OR TWO-HORSE CHARIOT), FROM THE ORIGINAL IN MARBLE AT THE VATICAN, AND OF THE PULPIT BY GIOVANI PISANO, FORMERLY IN THE CATHEDRAL AT PISA.

SOUTH COURT, SHOWING THE PRINCE CONSORT’S GALLERY.enlarge-image

SOUTH COURT, SHOWING THE PRINCE CONSORT’S GALLERY.

It is these superb figures, representing the great artists of the past, which constitute the most salient feature of decoration in the museum. In this case (as in so many others in the museum) the scheme—due to the late Mr. Godfrey Sykes—of combining the purposes of general decoration with subjects of special interest in a museum, has been most fortunate: the general effect is noble, the figures interesting as portraits and as representations of costume, the varieties of mosaic in which they are produced being of value for comparison. There are thirty-six flat alcoves—eighteen on each side—and the figures in them are those of the chief artists in ornamentation, with the names of their designersbeneath: Phidias (by Poynter); Apelles (Poynter); Nicola Pisano (Leighton); Cimabue (Leighton); Torel, the English goldsmith, d. 1300 (Burchett); William of Wykeham, bishop and architect of Winchester Cathedral, d. 1404 (Burchett); Fra Angelico (Cope); Ghiberti (Wehnert); Donatello (Redgrave); Gozzoli, one of whose Florentine frescoes, containing his own portrait, is in the museum, d. 1478 (E. Armitage); Luca della Robbia, specimens of whose terra-cotta work in the museum show him to have been a man of genius, d. 1481 (Moody); Mantegna (Pickersgill); Giorgione (Prinsep); Giacomo da Ulma, friar at Bologna and painter on glass, d. 1517 (Westlake); Leonardo da Vinci (J. Tenniel); Raphael (G. Sykes); Torrigiano (Yeames); A. Dürer (Thomas); P. Vischer (W. B. Scott); Holbein (Yeames); Giorgio, painter in majolica, d. 1552 (Hart); Michael Angelo (Sykes); Primaticcio, the Italian who made the decorations at Fontainebleau, d. 1570 (O’Neil); Jean Goujon, to whom is attributed the old carving in the Louvre, d. 1572 (Bowler); Titian (Watts); Palissy (Townroe); François du Quesnoy, Flemish ivory carver, d. 1546 (Ward); Inigo Jones (Morgan); Grinling Gibbons (Watson); Wren (Crowe); Hogarth (Crowe); Sir J. Reynolds (Phillips); Mulready (Barwell). The only very modern artist in this list is Mulready, and he is certainly unfortunate, looking as if Mr.Punch’s most cynical artist had been employed to depict him. The late Mr. Owen Jones has been well represented in a mosaic set in the wall near a staircase leading from the Oriental Court decorated by him. Mulready is the only bit of really ugly work in the series, although, of course, the merits of the others are unequal. The artists have evidently given careful archæological study to the costumes of each period, and in some cases—as Prinsep’s Giorgione, Scott’s Vischer, and Pickersgill’s Mantegna—the work is such as the grand old workers around need not be ashamed of. Of great interest, too, are the varieties of material of which the mosaics are composed, concerning which I can only say here that the Italian glass appears to me incomparably superior to the experiments in English ceramic wares.

The shape of this double room, it will be borne in mind, implies four large lunettes, one, that is, at each end of the two large roof-spans. One of these has been already filled by Sir Frederick Leighton, P.R.A., with an admirable allegorical painting representing the “Arts of War.” Here we see workmen forging every variety of armor, shields, weapons, and women buckling them on to knights, as is written in fabliaux of the Round Table. Sir Frederick has put his most graceful drawing and purest colors into this fine work. There is also in the gallery a design for a companion picture of the “Arts of Peace,” wherein the ladies are engaged in the pleasanter work of adorning themselves, and utilizing mirrors, while the men are toiling to provide the sinews for the gentler siege in which their own hearts are liable to capture. These works are scholarly, almost hypercritically exact in archæological details, and when the second is completed the court will be greatly improved.

CHINESE POTTERS AT WORK.—WINDOW IN THE CERAMIC GALLERY.enlarge-image

CHINESE POTTERS AT WORK.—WINDOW IN THE CERAMIC GALLERY.

To Mr. F. W. Moody, one of the most energetic and accomplished teachers at the museum, the institution is indebted for many instructive experiments and designs in the way of decoration. No one should fail to observe the very remarkable exterior wall decoration covering one entire side of the new School of Science, which is a most complete revival of thesgraffitowork of the fifteenth century. This experiment by Mr. Moody of thehigh Renaissance in Italy has been placed on a wall of the building not visible from the streets, but only from the windows of the museum. It is analogous to theniello, which was graven in silver and the lines filled in with carbon, making a black picture on a white ground. (There is a good account of this ornamentation, said to be the origin of all engraving for printed work, in W. B. Scott’sHalf-hour Lectures.) Mr. Moody’s experiment is made by filling in the hollows of the cement, presenting a multiplicity of scrolls, symbols, allegorical figures—Natura, Scientia, etc.—and portraits of scientific men. The stairway from which this vast work—covering the wall for four or five stories—can best be seen is another interesting experiment of Mr. Moody’s. As befits a stairway leading to the Ceramic Gallery, its ornaments are made of Minton porcelain. The steps and facings of the steps are a kind of mosaic made of hexagon pellets painted; the walls are panelled with white porcelain; and their effect under the light falling through large figured windows, toned rather than colored, is very good indeed.

Entering now the Ceramic Gallery, we find its contents illustrated by a very ingeniously devised series of window etchings (as they may be called), which are probably unique in the history of work on glass. The windows on one side of this room, fifteen in number, each double, were intrusted to Mr. William B. Scott, who as an archaeologist in art has few superiors. Mr. Scott designed no fewer than forty-eight large pictures, representing the history of ceramic art from the most ancient Chinese, Egyptian, Indian, and Persian down to Wedgwood; and these he has placed in the fifteen windows, where, unhappily, they are little observed, being without mention, much less description, in any work except that now before the reader. They are for the most part in black and white, colors being introduced only once or twice, and then but slightly. The first and second windows are devoted to the Chinese, their work being, if not the earliest, the most ancient in porcelain, and that which has most influenced the European art. Here is shown their whole method, from the preparation of the clay, the half-naked natives bringing the kaolinfrom caves in panniers, others steeping it in water, refining it in large mortars, and kneading it on tables. The potter is seen before his rude wheel, and forming the vessel by hand-pressure. And after this we trace his work to the furnace, and on to its place in the shop. This work implies the most patient study of original Chinese models. One window represents characteristic Chinese ornamentation—such as the royal dragon and the bird of paradise, and a bazar at Pekin. The third window represents early Egyptian art. The upper part shows the casting of brick by packing in boxes, and then turning it out, all under the whip of the taskmaster, the work and the whip being but little different to-day from what they were in the ancient days whose relics have been so diligently studied by Mr. Scott on the papyri of the British Museum. Beneath, a skilled workman is painting a large Canopus: he is on his knees, with his feet doubled behind him. One page, so to speak, of this window represents Assyrian art by a triumphal procession, in which immense vases are carried on ox trucks, and smaller ones on the heads of prisoners—a design based upon discoveries in Nineveh which show the great importance that people ascribed to earthenware. The fourth window is Greek and Etruscan. The Greek legend of the origin of painting—the daughter of the potter of Sicyon tracing on the wall the shadow of her lover on his leaving her for a journey—is exquisitely done. Next we see the girl applying her plan to her father’s vases. We have also depicted with learning the honorary uses of pottery among the Greeks, the vases given as prizes in public games, or as votive offerings for the dead, by which custom the finest examples we have were transmitted; and, finally, there is the genius of Death holding in her hand the cinerary urn. The fifth window is Hispano-Moresque. The earliest ware in Europe after the Samian of which we have any examples was that made by the Moors, who brought the art of making it from east of the Mediterranean. This was the famous “lustre-ware” which was supplied from Spain, which is now so eagerly sought by collectors, both on account of its beauty and as the origin of the Italian majolica.Specimens of this kind of pottery have been found by Layard at Nineveh and at Ephesus. There appears to be little doubt that it is of Persian origin. It must have been always very difficult to make; in the modern manufacture about fifty per cent. of the pieces come out of the furnace dull and worthless. The fine specimens seem to the workmen happy accidents rather than the steady results of any normal process upon which they can depend. The first design in this window of Mr. Scott’s represents the master-potter amidst his swarthy workmen watching the hour-glass beside the fire. This wonderful lustre was the result of some utilization of smoke in modifying the copper glaze, and was probably discovered by accident, as so many fine effects in the ceramic art have been. This beautiful ware has lately attracted especial attention in England because of the experiments which Mr. De Morgan, son of the late mathematician of UniversityCollege, is making. He has tried nearly every kind of smoke influence upon copper and silver pigments, in contact with glaze and his success has been remarkable. These lustre-wares are still, I believe, made in some parts of Spain in a small way; also at Gubbio, in Italy; but the furnace of Mr. De Morgan at Chelsea is the most active and successful in bringing out such wares in all their varieties.

ITALIAN MAJOLICA (URBINO). SIXTEENTH CENTURY.enlarge-image

ITALIAN MAJOLICA (URBINO). SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

LAMP FROM AN ARABIAN MOSQUE—FOURTEENTH CENTURY.enlarge-image

LAMP FROM AN ARABIAN MOSQUE—FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

It adds greatly to the charm of these windows that they are as a frame around the objects whose history they tell. Fine examples of the “lustre-ware” from the earliest ages are in this gallery. And we have only to turn round from admiring another part of this fifth window, showing the building of the Alhambra, and its wonderful vase, to see the finest copy of that unparalleled piece of lustre-ware. The vase is four feet five and a half inches high, by eight feet two and a half inches in circumference; it is decorated with two antelopes, and foliations covering the body of the vase, intermingled with which are African characters whose sense is “Felicity and Fortune,” “Permanent Prosperity;” and the colors are brown and blue on a yellow ground, the lustre being of a mother-of-pearl tint. From rich specimens of ancient Italian majolica we in turn refer to the sixth window, which shows us the embryonic and later phases of this beautiful art. The Italians imitated the Hispano-Moresque lustre as well as they could, but not being able to attain it exactly, they secured new tints of their own, especially a very fine ruby lustre. Afterward they painted their wares without trying to get lustres, to obtain which was perhaps a work too slow and precarious to be profitable. The vast development of ceramic art in Italy has required three windows—sixth, seventh, and eighth—for its representation. First we have bird’s-eye views of the localities with which it was chiefly associated: Urbino, the seat of the finest ware made in the time of Raphael, wherein is portrayed their process of softening and refining the clay by putting it in square pits in the ground; Duranto, with its method of grinding the clay in a sort of water-mill; Gubbio, with its own ingenious processes. Then we have other Italian methods—foot-mill, hand-mill, horse-mill.An artist is seen in his studio, receiving as sitters ladies whose portraits he paints on plates that are to be their marriage gifts—a design taken from a plate in the gallery painted by Maestro Giorgio—while other details have been taken from a MS. by Piccolpasso, also preserved in the museum. And, finally, we have a representation of Luca della Robbia, of the fifteenth century, who used earthenware medallions, admirably modelled and fired with white glaze, which were fixed on the outside of buildings, and may be seen to-day on the Foundling Hospital and several churches at Florence. The very word “majolica” (Majorca) shows that the Italians found their art where the Moors left it. But if they could not equal the moresque lustres, they certainly developed and enriched their designs. Such decorations as that encircling the figure of St. George on the Urbino plate (see engraving) may be called “arabesque,” but they are equally Italian. It is curious to compare such arabesques with the ornament on a piece of real Arabian work, such as the accompanying ancient lamp. (This lamp, singularly enough, is of a form represented in very early Italian bronze carvings of sacred subjects.) Window ninth is devoted to Dutch tiles and pots and Flanders-ware, which were once imported in such vast quantities to this country: here they may be traced from their manufacture in Holland to their sale in the Thames docks. Window tenth relates the curious story of the Dresden-ware. Here it was that the famous material of the best porcelain (kaolin), which was so long the secret of China, was discovered by a happy accident—Böttcher, the alchemist, having taken a notion to analyze the white dust which his barber had used to powder his wig in a year ofdear flour. The two men are represented, and also the château of Meissen, where the first Dresden porcelain was secretly made. Window eleventh tells the story of Palissy, who, instructing himself, ruined his family: one leaf of the window shows him feeding his furnace with his broken furniture, while his wife with herbabe stands beseechingly by; the other shows his triumph, as he builds and decorates the grottoes in the Tuilleries garden. The story recalls that of Benvenuto Cellini, who, having been seized with a fever while casting his Perseus and Medusa, heard that his work was ruined. Leaping from his bed, he found the furnace burst, but he saw the metal was partly fused; he cast in two hundred pieces of his table-service, and the mould was filled. The great work was saved, and so was the artist; he ate a hearty meal with his workman, slept soundly, and was himself again. Window twelfth is devoted to Sèvres, where porcelain was carried to its highest perfection. The famous “Rose du Barry” and “Bleu du Roi” are represented—and here exquisite colors are used—by Louis XV. and Madame Du Barry exchanging vases of those colors. The old manufactory is pictured, and some of its finest designs, in the lower panes of the window. Near by is the beautiful specimen of Sèvres which France contributed to the first International Exhibition in London. In window thirteenth we are introduced to English wares, at present the most excellent in the world. The processes described are—preparing the clay, making different colored clays, stamping tiles, filling color into moulds, “throwing,” “turning,” applying printed patterns. It takes two of the double windows to display this, which brings us to the fifteenth and last, in which there are four designs of the greatest historical interest: Dr. Doddridge’s mother teaching her child Bible history from the tiles in the fireplace; Dr. Samuel Johnson trying experiments; figures of Josiah Wedgwood and Bentley, his partner; Flaxman and Stothard, the painter. The two artistslast named both worked in decorating earthenware for Wedgwood. Flaxman was underpaid by Wedgwood for the numerous models he supplied—models still used by the firm. The poor artist has made the fortunes of three generations of his employer’s family, whose present representatives are so liberal that one must suppose their ancestor to have hardly realized the value of the artist’s work until it was too late to reward him.

PALISSY, THE POTTER—WINDOW IN THE CERAMIC GALLERY.enlarge-image

PALISSY, THE POTTER—WINDOW IN THE CERAMIC GALLERY.

SÈVRES PORCELAIN VASE.—MODERN.enlarge-image

SÈVRES PORCELAIN VASE.—MODERN.

HENRI DEUX CANDLESTICK.enlarge-image

HENRI DEUX CANDLESTICK.

The visitor to the Ceramic Gallery in this museum will be apt to admit that there were never windows that shed more light than these of the kind required by a student. He will see lustres on the lustre-wares beyond what mere sunlight can give, and the huge dragons, deer, and horned birds on the Moresque-Spanish dishes will link the culture of 1882 with the barbaric mediæval mythology. He will, indeed, find at every step that he is really exploring in this gallery of pots and dishes strata marked all over with the vestiges of human and ethnical development. Nothing can be more complete than the arrangement of the gallery. Not onlyis it chronological, but beneath each particular specimen a card tells when and where it was made, and the price paid for it by the museum. If it has gone off with the floating collection, the card reports that also. One may learn what changes have occurred in the prices of such wares by finding Sèvres vases, for instance, marked at £100 or £200, of a like character with those six for which Lord Dudley recently paid £17,500. These are articles which, when first collected, incited the first cabinet minister who inspected them to ask, “What’s the use of all this trash?” There is a single candlestick in this room now worth all the “trash” in that noble lord’s mansion. It is a specimen of that famous “Henri Deux ware” of which only fifty-five pieces exist, so far as is known. This elegant ware has been such a puzzle to antiquarians that no fewer than thirteen different works have been written about it. It was finally ascertained by M. Riocreux, of the Imperial Ceramic Museum at Sèvres, that the pottery was made at Oiron, in France; that two artists made it in the earlier part of the sixteenth century for Henry II. and his queen, whose initials or monograms are on several of the pieces; and the artists were François Cherpentier and Jean Bernard. Cherpentier, the chief maker, had been an architect, and when he set about working in earthen-ware he was fond of moulding it in little monumental shapes, and filling in the hollows with different colors. The candlestick has a pale yellow ground, with arabesques, etc., in reddish-brown. The base is circular, with projecting brackets, on which stand three boys holding shields inscribed with the arms and cipher of Henri Deux. Above are three terminal figures of satyrs. This work (which it is to be hoped will some day be called by the artist’s name instead of the king’s) is less than a foot high; it cost £750, and is one of the cheapest purchases ever made. Seven of the fifty-five specimens of this ware are in the collection of Sir Anthony de Rothschild, two in that of Baron Lionel de Rothschild, two in that of Baron Gustave de Rothschild, three in that of Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, while the Louvre has the same number as the South Kensington Museum—five. Three very beautiful specimens (candlestick,ewer, and large salt-cellar) were found some years ago, very carefully wrapped in a blanket, placed in a wicker clothes-basket, under a bed in a garret of Narford Hall. Our engraving (p. 56) represents the candlestick so found. The pieces were no doubt collected by Sir Andrew Fountaine in France, in the last century, and, put away perhaps by some provident house-keeper, now turn up as a more valuable bequest to the old connoisseur’s descendants than he could have imagined, but which is rightly appreciated by the present owner of the pieces, Mr. Andrew Fountaine. The other specimens of this Henri Deux ware in this gallery are two tazzas, a plateau, and a wonderful salt-cellar, of which last the skill of a pupil at South Kensington enables me to give the linear design.

HENRI DEUX SALT-CELLAR.enlarge-image

HENRI DEUX SALT-CELLAR.

But it must not be supposed that this is merely an antiquarian collection: the best work now going on all over the world is represented, and one may see by the superb examples of modern Berlin work and of Minton that England and Germany are engaged in a competition for excellence which bids fair to distance anything done in the past. What admirable work Minton can do may be estimated by the embossed and tinted tiles surrounding the ten columns which support the roof of this gallery. They reproduce the finest colors of the Celadon porcelain of Sèvres. Around each column are letters forming the names ofthe ten greatest potters—Vitalis (whose name was found on a red vase of Samian-ware discovered in London in 1845), Giorgio Andreoli, Luca della Robbia, Veit Hirschvogel of Nuremberg (1441-1525), Xanto of Urbino (1547), Palissy (1510-89), François Cherpentier (maker of the Henri Deux ware, otherwise called faïence d’Oiron), Böttcher (1681-1719), Wedgwood (1730-95), and last, not least, Pousa, with whom began the list of wondrous accidents with which the history and traditions of pottery abound. Pousa is said to have been a workman in the imperial porcelain factory of China. On one occasion the emperor had ordered some great work, and Pousa tried long to produce it—in vain. Finally, driven to despair, he plunged into the furnace. His self-immolation caused such an effect upon the ware in the furnace that it came out the most beautiful piece of porcelain ever known. Pousa is now the patron saint of porcelain-workers in China, and is kept near them in a little corpulent figure (porcelain), which is familiar to many parts of the world where its story and sanctity are unknown. The South Kensington Museum has carried out in its own case this tradition of happy accidents, having been remarkable for its good-luck. Some instances of it are in the Ceramic Gallery. Some years ago a terrible explosion of gas occurred in the house of the famous art collector and dealer, Mr. Gambart, at St. John’s Wood, by which the house-maid was killed. M. Alma Tadema was a guest in the house, and he had the presence of mind to open a window when he first perceived that gas was escaping, by which means the disaster was mainly limited to the dining-room. In this room were two large cabinets filled with splendid specimens of Flemish “graybeards,” beakers, and similar wares, and some of the best were smashed. As the fragments were about to be cleared away, a friend of Mr. Gambart’s, who was also connected with this museum, brought him an offer from the institution of £800 (as I have heard; at any rate, a sum that was generous) for the collection, broken and unbroken, and it was gratefully accepted. The skilled workmen at the museum have put the bits together with such adroitness that it requires a practised eye to distinguish the wares that suffered.The magnificent reproduction of the Alhambra Vase by Baron Davillier, elsewhere described, was exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1867, and an agent of the museum found it “going a-begging;” he purchased it for far less than its actual value. And, indeed, I might instance a vast number of similar cases not only in this particular gallery—which we must now leave—but throughout the museum. The truth is, the South Kensington Museum has shown that the present is the great opportunity of museums, while it has done much to turn that tide on whose flood it floated to fortune, by awakening nations to the value of their treasures. The Oriental world, and, indeed, some portions of Southern Europe, have hitherto been unconscious of the value of their monuments, because only culture can prevent familiarity breeding contempt. Miss Frances Power Cobbe once expressed in my hearing the shock she received when, on first arriving at Old Alexandria, in Egypt, she found her luggage set down on an ancient monument resembling those treasured in the British Museum. How much the South Kensington Museum has reaped from the indifference to objects whose value is not intrinsic, and which for that reason are unique and inestimable, may appear incidentally as I proceed to describe some of them, adding what particulars I have been able to learn concerning their acquisition.

The little sixpenny guide-book sold at the door is necessarily provisional; the historical and descriptive volume which such an institution requires must remain a desideratum so long as the museum itself is changing and growing daily before our eyes. But the materials for that work exist; specialists have studied well the various departments; there exist nearly twenty large Blue-books recording the origin and growth of the museum; and when all these are sifted and their connected story told—enriched, as we may hope it will be, from the memories of those men who have founded and conducted the work to its present condition—the history so told will be in itself a sort of literary museum, replete with curiosities, picturesque incidents, and romance. In this scattered condition of the facts I have had to depend mainly on information given by the gentlemen just referred to, and whatscraps I could pick up in old newspaper files and Blue-books. This it has appeared to me right to mention here, in explanation of any slightness and unsatisfactoriness that may be found in the details, or of the motley way in which they are put together.

If the history of this museum of civilization would record strange instances of popular neglect for great works of art, it must at the same time show that works of genius, in whatever perishable material embodied, have a strange vitality. The Milonian Venus, twice buried in the earth that she might not be harmed by the wrath of her Mars, has had experiences hardly more significant than those through which the sacred forms designed by Raphael—preserved by aid alike of king and regicide, by aid, too, of the neglect which left them hidden for a hundred years in lumber-rooms—have become the glorious inheritance of South Kensington.

The seven cartoons—what would not now be paid for the three that are lost![A]—were designed and drawn by the great artist and his scholars at the request of Pope Leo X. (1513) as copies for tapestry, and the tapestries made from them are now in the Vatican. They were made at Arras, and the cartoons—so called because drawn on card-board—were thrown into the warehouse there. Here they remained neglected until they were seen by Rubens, who advised Charles I. to purchase them for a tapestry establishment at Mortlake, near London. On the death of the king, Oliver Cromwell paid £300 for them, intending that the tapestry-works should be continued. On the fall of Cromwell they were confiscated, and, for a second time, were thrust away into a lumber-room, this time at Whitehall. Fortunately the designs were on strips of paper twelve feet long, which could roll up, and so they were able to survive such usage. The next time they attracted notice was in the reign of William III., by whose order Sir Christopher Wren prepared a room for them at Hampton Court. They were then carefully lined with cloth.They were never removed again until placed in the gallery prepared for them here, with the sometimes criticised and certainly remarkable inscription beneath each, “Lent by the Queen.” The last individual who clearly owned them was Oliver Cromwell, who paid what was supposed a large sum (£300) for works which no amount could purchase from the Protector’s true heir—the English Nation.

MICHAEL ANGELO’S EROS.enlarge-image

MICHAEL ANGELO’S EROS.

The museum is especially rich in old Italian glass. Some of these wine-glasses are nearly as light in weight as ordinary letter-paper, and the iridescence is most wonderful. One of the oldest forms has on it red Indian girls, dressed like Italian ballet-dancers of a very early period. There is reason to believe that this piece of glass was made soon after the discovery of America, when the enthusiasm about the region which the great Genoese had discovered filled all Italy. It is very plain that no portraits of the squaws could have reached the countrymen of Columbus when these dancers were designed. Mr. G. W. Cooke, Academician and landscape-painter, had in early life a studio inVenice, and he had a way of picking up bits of old glass in the shops, the keepers of which were often willing, for a few soldi, to part with things now worth (in some cases literally) their weight in gold. Afterward he had, I believe, a studio in Agerola, and there also found beautiful Italian glass. He collected in this way enough to fill three or four large cases. After they were collected a considerable quantity of ancient Spanish glass was obtained, and the fact was made apparent that the latter was in some cases an imitation of the former—the reverse being probably the case with the majolica, in which Italy would seem to have imitated the Hispano-Moresque “lustre-wares.” It is possible that a transfer of art-initiative from Spain to Italy may have been one of the first bad results of the banishment of the Moors, whose exquisite works are now models for our finest architects. With reference to the hypothesis that the theatrical squaws are to be referred to the interest that followed the discovery of America, I may mention that there are several curious instances in the museum where dates have been approximately fixed by the treatment of subjects. One notable example is a Japanese dish, on which is a rude but reverent representation of the baptism of Christ. Although certainty cannot be reached yet in the matter, it is possible that this dish was made before the extermination of Christianity from Japan (1641). However, it is known that before the discovery of kaolin in Europe the English and Dutch used to send over to China designs to be put on wares that were ordered. There are various pieces of china which are marked with English coats of arms, and a clergyman in Somersetshire has three pieces marked with scenes of the Passion. But I believe there is no instance where any such work is known to be Japanese, and, indeed, the latter had not formerly any great reputation in England.

There are eight magnificent Japanese bronzes in the museum, of which one is a figure of the beatified Buddha. It is impossible to gaze upon this grand figure (about fifteen feet high), seated with crossed legs, and open hands lying one in the other, without being impressed by a certain majesty in the ideal it represents,as well as astonished at the largeness of the undertaking which has produced a bronze of such size. The figure is seated, as it were, on the ground, and the round, infantine fulness and health of the face and the closed eyes render it probable that it was meant to represent the supreme moment when Sakya Muni attained, through humility and meditation, that sacred Buddhahood (enlightenment) which he had vainly sought by practising the severe asceticisms which the Brahmins enjoined upon him. “He met a certain Brahmin,” says the Siamese version, “named Sotiya, and from him accepted eight handfuls of long grass. The Master spread the grass on the ground to the east of the Bo-tree, and sat thereon, and the grass became a jewelled throne. The Lord, with well-steadied mind, turned his whole thought to attain through purity and love the exaltation of knowledge. And around him gathered the angels of many worlds with fragrant offerings, and the strains of their celestial concert resounded in the most distant universe.”

It is interesting to observe the strong impression made upon the casual visitors by this face so sweetly serene, so free from the lines which care and ambition trace upon the European face. I heard a little girl of thirteen years say, after her silent gaze, “How I would like to climb up and sit in his lap! Perhaps I would get some of his goodness.” How many little ones of the East have felt the same as they looked upon this face of perfect holiness!

The history of some of the other bronzes is as follows: An English sea-captain saw three large bells, each seven or eight feet high, about to be taken on a Japanese ship for ballast. He saw that they were of antique and curious design, and was told that they had belonged to a temple that had been destroyed. The Japanese seamen gladly parted with them for a small sum, and told him of similar things near by. These, which were two bronze vessels something like huge candlesticks, each four and a half feet high—probably meant to support large masts for flags—he found lying amidst rubbish of old metal. These noble bronzes are elegantly modelled with dragon ornaments, and indicatea development of skill in this direction which has never been equalled in Europe. Besides these there are two large incense-burners eight feet high, and wonderfully wrought with beautiful decorative and symbolical forms.

Back to Index Next