Studio: international art (3.1894)

Home Arts and Industries at the Albert Hall

leather embossing, in one instance executed by the
Princess of Wales herself, from Sandringham, from
Kirkby Lonsdale, and from Leighton Buzzard, the

WALNUT TRAY, INLAID BY T. BRAY. DESIGNED BY
ODEYNE DE GREY

work from the last place being heightened in effect
by delicate colour-tinting in parts. It should be
observed that at Leighton Buzzard the industry is
chiefly carried on by cripples, whose condition
prevents them from engaging in more active
labour.

Chip carving is another case in point. The
technique is easy enough, but the problem is to
turn it to account. A most effective decoration in
this process was to be seen on the back of a hall
chair from Leatherhead. A hanging cupboard
(after a design of Mr. Voysey's, as I was informed)
in carved wood, from Epsom, the ornamental
hinges, however, supplied from elsewhere, struck
me as handsome, but as a rule, as in the wood-
carving from Southwold for instance, it seemed to
me that the execution was superior to the design.
The carving, which was, perhaps, taking it all
round, the most satisfactory, came from Sandbach.
Old Tyrolese carving, with incised background and
other parts very often coloured, is extremely simple
and as decorative as can be ; but it is distressing
to recognise a travesty of the same thing, executed
in relief, minus the colour, and, worse still, all the
spirit taken out of it in the poor drawing, and this
too without excuse, for the original is flat, and you
can rub it with the same ease as a brass.

Some particularly charming inlay—a reminis-
cence, if I mistake not, of similar work of Mr.
Lethaby's or Mr. Reginald Blomfield's—in various
kinds of wood, with the introduction here and
there of silver, copper, or mother-of-pearl—is pro-
duced under the direction of Miss de Grey, in the
parish of St. Saviour's, Pimlico. Some few speci-
mens are here reproduced, but it should be under-
stood that black and white sketches cannot pre-

tend to do justice to the colour variations which
are the special property of inlay work.

In pottery the artistic standard was scarcely so
high as it might have been, but the Delia Robbia
ware, under the management of Messrs. Conrad
Dressier and Harold Rathbone, at Birkenhead, has
the merit of being quaint in style, and of a very
distinctive quality.

The Association, with noble and influential
support at its back, should be in a position to do
a great work. But herein also subsists its dis-
advantage, that it can scarcely venture to decline
a commission coming from a high quarter. And
yet the Duchess is a danger, the Countess a con-
tingency of which it is well on occasions to be-
ware. For alas ! it is a fact that the Garter and
the strawberry-leaf do not invariably confer on
them that hold them immunity from bad taste.
And now and again it happens that his Excellency
will order, and her Grace, to the chagrin of every
unprejudiced person, will require the class over
which she presides to carry out a thing that out-
rages the very name of art. Well, more is the pity ;
but then the committee should combine to keep
the monstrous product in the dark. Again, why,
when they note the evidences of particular skill or
originality in the member of any local class, do
they promptly require him or her to attend for a
course of instruction at the central school ? It is
a practice that may do more active harm than
good. Books of the Association's official designs
were on view at the Exhibition, and I speak from

CHEST, INLAID BY BERNARD SHAW, DESIGNED BY
MABEL DE GREY

what I saw. The drawings are limited in number
and for the most part of no very special merit;
plenty of examples shown by local schools which
I could name if I chose being of a higher artistic
standard. And why, again, have they hitherto
practically disallowed the employment of animal
forms in ornament, and only now at last (thanks,
I presume, to Danish traditionary preferences)