THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876.


more minute than on any of the others, although the features of the figures
in the next piece are sharply and clearly defined.  In this piece it will
be
observed that there are several costumed figures, which in the originals
are
always of value, as illustrating the dress of the time in which the jugs
were
made.   The fourth one of this group is of a pattern now again popular. 
A
band or zone with figures of gods and goddesses surrounds the body of the
piece, which is moulded to represent a woven surface. A narrow border, deco-
rated with a pretty flower-pattern, encircles the rim, which is surmounted
by a
flat cover. As has been indicated in these descriptions, all of these jugs
are
either copied from or designed after antique models.
The Lambeth fdience, manufactured by DOULTON & CO., OF ENGLAND, is
already familiar to our readers by many beautiful examples already engraved;
but the collection exhibited by the MESSIS. DouiroN at the Centennial included
so many styles and varieties of objects to which the skill of their artists
had
been, applied that the supply of fresh objects for illustration of their
famous
ware is practically inexhaustible.  On page 319, for example, is seen a group
of jugs, vases, ewers, etc., of antique and modern shapes, each with some
charac-
teristic bit of decoration, giving to the piece a unique value. We say unique,
because it must be remembered that each of these pieces is decorated by hand
at the artist's pleasure; no two articles are exactly alike.  How much better
this is in an art point of view than the multiplication of one given style,
we
need not here consider.  It is sufficient to point out that while an object
accepted as a model or standard of excellence in form, ornamentation and
decoration is always beautiful and loses nothing by duplication, this servile
copying is fatal to all artistic activity and progress. The study of the
beautiful
is always to be commended, but it should be pursued with a view to directing
original ability in the proper directions and subject to the acknowledged
canons
of art. Here and there in the group before us we recognize examples of the
pottery known as Doulton-ware, which in its way is quite as beautiful as
the
Lambeth fdience.
In wandering through the several European courts at the Centennial, the
American visitor, whose experience of civilization had been confined to this
country, gained for the first time a realizing sense of the luxury of the
old
world.  It is true that the homes of our wealthy classes are crowded with


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