TERRA-COTTA,  BRICK,  ETC.

99

United  States  Centennial  Commission  for  exhibition  in  1876,
and  to  be  afterwards  deposited  in  tbe  Permanent  Museum.
Tbe  enamelled  plaques,  panels,  pilasters,  and  fillets  ax - e
beautiful.  In  the  fagade,  door-jambs  and  window-casings  of
tbe  new  university  buildings  in  Vienna,  tbey  have  been  freely
used,  with  fine  effect.
It  is  gratifying  to  note  this  modern  revival  of  the  ancient
art,  kept  alive  in  tbe  sixteenth  Century  by  the  genius  of  Luca
della  Robbia,  and  now  capable  of  almost  indefinite  expansion,
since  the  knowledge  of  the  composition  of  colored  enamels  is
lio  longer  a  secret.  Of  the  beauty  of  such  enamelled  terracottas
  there  can  be  no  question,  and  their  durability  is  established
  by  experience.  Witness  tbe  ancient  enamels  of  Assyria
  and  Egypt,  as  well  as  the  works  of  della  Robbia,
preserved  in  collections.  The  South  Kensington  Museum
has  more  than  fifty  examples.  One  of  tbe  cboicest  specimens
is  the  medallion,  eleven  feet  in  diameter,  supposed  to  have
been  made  in  the  year  1453.  It  bears  the  arms  of  King
Ren6  of  Anjou,  surrounded  by  a  massive  border  of  fruit  and
foliage.  It  was  exposed  to  the  action  of  the  weather  for
more  than  four  hundred  years,  fixed  in  the  front  wall  of  a
villa  near  Florence.  Good  specimens  of  the  della  Robbia
wäre  aro  to  be  found  also  in  the  Athemeum  in  Boston,  and
the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  in  New  York.
The  terra-cotta  wäre,  building  Ornaments,  majolica,  etc.,
of  the  Vienna.  Company  is  manufactured  in  a  separate  establishment
  at  Inzersdorf.  The  clay  of  that  locality  produces  a
wäre  that  not  only  has  great  strength  and  resists  the  weather,
but  has  a  pleasing  stone  color,  which  harmonizes  so  well  with
the  usual  tone  of  the  buildings  that  the  figures  do  not  need
colonng  or  painting.
The  variety  of  the  figures  and  decorative  objects  is  very
great.  The  sample-book  contains  242  pages  of  closely
printed  lithographic  designs,  about  2,000  in  number.  The'
models,  of  which  the  Company  has  a  great  number,  are  all
made  from  drawings  by  the  most  eminent  architects,  and  are
exquisite  in  design.  The  possession  of  such  a  stock  of  patterns
  insures,  practically,  a  monopoly  of  the  business.  A
large  proportion  of  the  decorative  figures  seeu  in  the  fa^ades
of  the  splendid  buildings  adorning  the  Ring  Strasse  and  over