1502

OFFICIAL DESCRIPTIVE AND ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE.

mented with Gothic oak and acorns in bas-relief; the silveris of a dead brightness, and of greater purity than thesilver commonly employed ; it is said to he extremelydurable.

This flagon has been purchased by the Fine Arts Com-mission, for the Museum of the School of Design atMarlborough House.

Antique silver-gilt inkstand, in the Dresden style, withligures of llritanuia, Commerce, and Plenty.

Two centre salt-cellars; designs, Dolphin and hoy, andHoy supporting shell. The group of articles, with othersexhibited by the same firm, competed for and obtainedprizes offered, in 1851, by the Goldsmiths’ Company.—P. 690.—Plate 347.

[Parcel gilding is a style of decoration employed toadd to the value and appearance of objects executed inthe precious metals. It consists in attaching to portionsof the surface, and on such parts as the taste of theartist may point out, a coating of gold : thus, in the pre-sent instance, the grapes are gilt, and the veins of theleaves rendered more prominent by the same means. Thegold is attached by the old process with mercury, thatbeing considered the most durable. The applicationof the electro process has much facilitated the readi-ness with which the gold may he attached to portionsof a surface; parts which it is not desirable to gild being“ stopped out” by a varnish previous to the immersion ofthe object to be gilt in the solution of gold.—W. C. A.]

“ The Jury award a Prize Medal to Lambert and Raw-lings, Coventry Street, London (102, p. 690), for theircarefully executed, elegant, and novel silversmith's work,in particular, for a round flattened vase, with a long neckami lid, in the Oriental style; the body and the neckornamented with leaves with gilt veins, and gilt and bur-nished bunches of grapes: also for a centre vase, melonshaped and flattened, having a long neck, the division ofthe side and the neck ornamented with thistles in hasrelief: the silver is of a beautiful dead brightness, whichwould appear to be very durable.”— Juries' Reports,Cl. 23, p. 516.

117 Morel, .1. V., & Co., 7 New Burlington Street,Regent Street —Designers and Manufacturers.

Equestrian statue of Queen Elizabeth, after the bas-relief on the state seal of England, used during her reign ;height 4 feet 2 inches, length 3 feet. Embossed with thehammer, and forming a specimen of the real work of thesilversmith (that is, beaten out with the hammer only).It is said to be the largest piece of repousse work existing,both as regards size and workmanship. This manner ofworking was much practised in the sixteenth century,was revived in 1838, and has since been successfullyapplied.—P. 693.—Plate 343.

[The exhibitor directs attention to the important dis-tinction between cast and hammered work, commonlycalled repousse, of which Cellini says,—“ Continue in se pinvirtuosa pratiea.” Castings once made may be repeatedin mass or in detail j whereas, every separate article inrepousse requires the same labour and dexterity which,though a fault in a mere manufacture, adds value to awork of art. The earliest method of using the preciousmetals seems to have been in hammered plates, probablyapplied to a frame of timber, and in the Minerva ofPhidias , forming a gold and ivory statue of nearly 40 feethigh. Cellini describes the method of working largestatues, “ Lavcri di grosseria,” in his day.—II. T. II.]

A large bouquet, composed of diamonds and rubies offine water, representing a rose, a tulip, and a volubilis.It can be readily separated by an ingenious contrivanceto form a stomacher, head-dress, brooches, and bracelet.The bouquet contains about 700 carats of diamonds and‘200 carats of rubies of even colour, and set in bezels ofgold. -Plate 341.

*

[The oriental ruby most esteemed by the jeweller isclassed as a red sapphire by the lapidary, whose test isnot colour hut specific gravity and hardness. The rubyspindle, according to the latter test, is the genuine ruby,and is less hard and heavy than the oriental.—II. T. 11.]

Class XXIV.

GLASS.

15 Davis, Gueatiiead, & Green, Stourbridge —Manufacturers.

Group of Etruscan vases in opaque glass, ornamentedwith figures and borders after the antique, ami the coni"positions of John Flaxman , R.A., from the Iliad of Homer ,the Theogouy and Days of Hesiod, and the Tragedies otzEschylus.—P. 609.—Plate 318.

[The original vases of Etruria were not made of glass,but clay—their use, that of holding the ashes of the dead,is thus described:—“ After the body had been burned, theashes were gathered into an urn or vase, which was calleda cineraty urn, and was deposited in the tomb, either onthe floor or in a niche in the wall; and thus in a familyvault might be seen a row of urns containing the ashesof the family for ages back.” The more rude specimensare supposed to he of Etruscan make ; those more delicatein form, and with the figures retaining the colour of theclay, arc generally understood by the learned to be ofGreek origin.

These vases, which form the subject of illustration,resemble more nearly the painted varieties contemporane-ous with the age of Pericles —in the introduction of colour,&c. They are produced from opaque glass, obscured byremoving the outer enamel or glaze by friction with sand.The figures are painted in enamel colours, which, afterexposure to the muffle, become fused, incorporate withthe glass, and are indestructible.

In the note to 14, Class XXIV., page 699, a brief his-tory of the introduction of the manufacture of glass atStourbridge was given ; and a continuation is here given,enumerating the several improvements introduced, andas far as possible, the date of their introduction, by whichit will be seen how much has been done for the glasstrade in the locality which, if not the first in which dwas practised, was certainly the second.

So far hack as 1650, an engraver of the name of Soilin'ner settled at Stourbridge , and acquired some degree otcelebrity. The first glass chandelier was made by Head-ley, Ensall, & Co., about 1760, and was kept in a lions®near the Glass Works, in Rrettell Lane, as a curiosity, h ,rmany years afterwards. In 1802 a workman of the nam®of Charles Chubsie made the first open and shut moulds-He was then in the employ of the old establishment n*Headley, Ensall, & Holt.

Steam-engines were first used for cutting glass by Hen-son, of Dudley, and Dovey, of Stourbridge . Until th®introduction of power the work was generally done bylarge wheels turned by manual labour, and not uufr®'quently females were employed at this task. John Dovey’of Hrettell Lane, was the first who used wrought-o' 1 ’ 11mills for cutting glass; he has also the merit of havingintroduced into use the double mitre and the dou'd®hollow stones.

In the year 1804 three new shapes of drinking gins® 1were introduced by Messrs. Loxdale & Jackson, at a gin*' 8house near Hilston : it was with some difficulty the i' 11provemeuts were carried out, us the workmen felt ®