PLATE CVI.

STOVE IN THE MEDIEVAL STYLE,

DESIGNED BY PUGIN FOR HARDMAN OF BIRMINGHAM.

No one who has visited the Continent can have failed to draw a comparison between the cumbrousblackleaded erections of cast-iron which disfigure so many of our public buildings, and the elegant stove ofwhite earthenware by which the French and Germans obtain the requisite degree of warmth, without offending

the eye that can appreciate the beautiful in every form; and if we may judge by the beautiful execution of

the coloured arabesques, with which so many of their stoves are decorated, they must be rather costly piecesof furniture. The more common sorts are, it is true, without coloured ornament; but the raised or sunkenrichments are often beautiful, and rarely offend against the canons of good taste.

We have already given (at Plate LV.) an example of these stoves contributed to the Great Exhibition

by Berlin; but the subject of our present Plate is of a very different construction, and is intended for the

heating of a large hall, or other public place. Instead of the tiles themselves forming the structure of thestove, they are placed in a framework of iron, and only serve as an outer enclosure to the flues and fire-boxof the stove.

The invention of these closed stoves, as we gather from the evidences of the monuments and MSS. ofthe middle ages, must be awarded to the Germans ; for it is in the works of their artists that representationsof them most frequently occur, and the only existing examples have been discovered in their principalcities and castles. Two of these are represented in the excellent work of Herr Heideloff on the middle ages,the most perfect of them is now in the Hohen Schloss at Fussen , and deserves particular attention, as itbears the name of the maker and the place of manufacture in a raised inscription running round the base, andwhich reads thus:— “Diser : ofen : wol : gestald : wurd : gemacht : da : man : zalt : 1514 : jar : beyHansen : Seltzaman : vogt : zu : Obendorft.”* The stove is built up of hollow ornamental tiles, with theconcave side outwards, into the form of an hexagonal tower of some ten or twelve feet high, the whole of theexterior being covered with a green glaze, relieved by yellow ornaments. The second specimen was found in avery imperfect state among the old buildings of the “ Prediger Kloster” at Nuremburg ; and although presentingsimilar characteristics to the preceding example, differs greatly in the architectural treatment of the details.

The tower-like outline and the use of hollow tiles are represented by nearly every contemporary authority as

generally prevalent.

Great praise is due both to the late Mr. Pugin and Messrs. Minton and Hardman for the design andexecution of this stove. It was evidently the object of the talented artist, whose decease we all deplore, topresent a specimen of the mediaeval stove, adapted in some respects to modern improvements, and not quiteso cumbersome as those in vogue in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Mr. Minton has performed his part in the manufacture of the tiles with a skill worthy of those master-potters, Glockenthorn, Prunner, Probes, Leygebe, and Andreas Leupold, whose works obtained for Nuiemburgthe same reputation for Faience that those of Albert Durer and others had previously done for sculptureand painting. A very considerable trade was carried on both by this city and Augsbuig in earthenware

* “ This stove, well formed, was made in the year 1514, by Hansen Seltzaman, mayoi of Oberdorft.