Studio: international art (2.1894)

Pdte sur Pdte

as they were extravagant. One of my most
ambitious enterprises had been the etching of a
dozen or so of my least incoherent designs with a
view to publication. The scheme did not go
farther than the printing of a few proofs, of which,
if I remember right, three sets were sold. One
copy was purchased by a young Englishman then
studying in Paris—Frederic Leighton. It has

FROM A PLAQUE BY M. L. SOLON

always been a source of regret to me that I never
had the opportunity of asking the President of the
Royal Academy whether he recollects this one of
the many instances in which he has endeavoured
to help a struggling artist, and to tender him my
much delayed, but none the less grateful, thanks.
I had, however, no cause to regret ultimately this
apparently fruitless speculation, for the set of
etchings happening to fall under the eye of the Art
Director of the Manufactory of Sevres, it proved to
be the means of my being engaged in that
National Institution ; an honour which, in my most
sanguine moments, I should never have dared to
expect. M. Y. Regnault, the world-famed chemist,
was then the chief administrator. The process of
decoration in " Pate sur Pate " was just on its trial,
and M. Regnault thought that my small abilities
might be turned in that direction. Nothing could
have pleased me more than to be asked to execute
some figure subjects in these delicate and trans-
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parent reliefs. All facilities were afforded to the
artists for the execution of their work ; we were
never limited as to time or to cost, and I may say
that it was only from that moment that I began in
earnest my art studies, as applied to decoration.
I was fond of sketching and modelling at night,
and it was in that occupation I spent almost all
the time left at my disposal after my day's work
was over at the factory. An occasion soon pre-
sented itself to turn those leisure hours to practical
purposes. Amateurs of art-porcelain remember
well the name of my late friend, M. E. Rousseau.
A dealer of an exceptional stamp, he was always
ready to bear the expenses of trials which were to
result in the production of an artistic novelty ; his
undertakings were guided by a most refined
originality combined with a natural sense of
beauty. His last achievement, the wonderful glass
vessels produced under his direction, have since
been imitated, but never equalled. One day when
we were chatting together about the various
decorative schemes he was anxious to bring out, he
asked me whether I would not undertake to make
for him a few small pieces, vases and plaques,
decorated by the new process. I protested my
complete ignorance of the composition of the
pastes and colours I used at the factory, and he
suggested that if I would start the necessary trials
in some private China Works, he would himself
defray the cost of the venture. Such a proposal
was bound to tempt me. I set to work, and it was
not long before I had found some ways and means
of my own by which I could produce white reliefs
on coloured grounds. All I did under these con-
ditions was signed " Miles," a name which con-
tained my three initials, M. L. S. At the exhibition
of the " Union Centrale des Arts appliques a
rindustrie," in 1865, I exhibited for the first time
a large series of plaques in "Pate sur Pate." M.
Regnault, who wrote the official report, pointed
out the difference existing between the method I
had followed in the decoration of those plaques
and the regular process in use at the establishment
over which he presided. As a further acknowledg-
ment of this originality of technical treatment, he
requested me to decorate a large vase in my own
way, to go with the contribution of the Imperial
factory to the International Exhibition, 1867.

The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war put an
end to my connection with Sevres and upset all
the plans I had formed for the future. The inha-
bitants had to leave the village on the eve of its
being occupied by the invading army—myself with
the rest. At this juncture my friend, Y. Galland,