Studio: international art (47.1909)

Hispano-Moresque Lustre Ware

We had meant to conclude with this crowning
work of great largeness of vision, but the indefatig-
able artist carries us on to this year’s Salon, where
he has struck a new note in his Emigrants, a
souvenir of Wissant, Pas-de-Calais. A family of
poor folk has halted for a moment by the wayside,
in a clear and limpid landscape with soft valleys,
whose simple lines seem to add to the impressive-
ness of the picture. To the present year belong
also the works of which reproductions in colour
accompany this article, a pastel and a painting,
both bearing witness to Lhermitte’s mastery in
these mediums.

We have now made a survey, alas ! far too

FIG. 3.—REVERSE OF LUSTRE DISH (C. 1475—1500)

short, of the triumphant career of Le'on Lhermitte.
To him has been accorded the rare privilege of
compelling the admiration of the elite who judge,
and of the crowd that knows no criticism save the
promptings of its heart. He is classic in the solid
foundations of his talents, but also innovator in
certain aspects of his work. He is allied with
tradition through the clearness, the rhythm, the
thoughtfulness which are the distinctive qualities
of our race. He is modern in his love of sunlight,
of movement, of life, and in the significance of his
subjects. His work is sane and strong in its
harmonious unity. It sings in praise of toil in the
open air, labour in the fields, and of the love
of God’s earth. The genial artist preaches by
example, himself carrying out the precepts of his
work, for every year he returns to saturate his
being with the old familiar scenes, and though

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risen to the receipt of many distinctions—he has
been “ Officier ” of the Legion of [Honour since
1894, and is a member of the Institut, etc.—
Lhermitte remains still, as ever, the child of Mont-
Saint-Pere. F. H.

HISPANO-MORESQUE lustre
WARE. BY AYMER VAL-
LANCE.

The origin of Hispano-Moresque lustre is
obscure. Some'; writers have traced it back to
Persia in remote times ; but, be that as it may,
there can be no doubt that the secret of the me-
tallic reflex was known, in the ninth century of the
Christian era, to the potters of Bagdad, whence,
through Northern Asia probably, it found its way
with the Moors into the Spanish peninsula. There
its manufacture was so far established among the
invading population as to attract special comment
and description in the first half of the twelfth cen-
tury. Unfortunately, however, there is no authenti-
cated specimen known of this early date ; nor does
the ware become adequately represented before
the fourteenth century. Indeed, examples belong-
ing to this period are so rare that a man may easily
reckon them upon his fingers. Of the following
century, however, it is otherwise. I hough almost
always an object de luxe, in the fifteenth century,
and thenceforward until the practical extinction of
the craft in the first quarter of the seventeenth
century, lustre ware became more and more known
and esteemed. What opus Anglicanum was among

FIG. 4.—REVERSE OF LUSTRE DISH (MALAGA OR
VALENCIA, LATE XV. CENT.)