Studio: international art (17.1899)

William De Morgan

repose, or at least in arrested action ; but in her
last work, the Dorothea and Francesca, recently
on view at the International Exhibition in
London, she has shown her power of rendering
motion with equal success. The two girls, the
daughters of the American poet Richard Gilder,
editor of the Cetitury Magazine, to whom the
picture belongs, are represented dancing together
in all the abandonment of youthful glee, and the
whole composition is full of rhythmic life. The
Dorothea and Francesca is by the artist herself con-
sidered one of her best works, and marks perhaps
the beginning of a new period in her successful
career, in which she will delight the world with other
compositions than portraits, for there is no doubt
that she might rival, if she would, any of her fellow-
countrymen in the production of subject pictures

that would appeal to an even wider public than
these various likenesses, popular though they are.

ILLIAM DE MORGAN
AND HIS POTTERY.
PART I. BY W. SHAW
SPARROW.

Lovers of art know that Mr. William De
Morgan was one of the first to reproduce in
modern pottery the richly glazed blues and greens
of the exquisite old Persian ware ; and they know,
too, that to him belongs the honour of having
re-discovered in England the way to make and to
employ the silver and copper lustres of the His-
pano-Moresque and Italian majolica. In artistic
circles these successes have
long been looked upon as
among the most notable
achievements of English
potters, and as such they
are mentioned in perhaps
the greatest of our national
works of reference, the
“ Encyclopeedia Britan-
nica.” In the present ar-
ticle the general history of
the work will be examined,
with special reference to
the tile department; and
I hope to show that beau-
tiful decorated tiles ought
to play in our national life
a far more important part
than that which is now
assigned to them.

Mr. William De Morgan
has lived through five of
the decades of the Queen’s
reign. From his father,
Augustus De Morgan, the
eminent mathematician and
logician (1806-1871), he
inherited two good things
which have ever been rare
among artists, namely, a
scientific bent of mind and
a gift for mechanical in-
vention. This gift he has
cultivated, chiefly by in-
venting machines and kilns
for his factory. As to his
BY Cecilia beaux artistic training, it began in

“ CYNTHIA