44 
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA. 
all the difficulties that the manipulation of such a mixture presented. 
It could neither he thrown nor pressed into moulds in the ordinary 
way ; and the shapes were got by Casting it in thick plaster moulds, 
and earefully turning and pushing it by band afterwards. More 
over, as in the process of firing this porcelain, so properly called 
päte tendre, the pieces were very apt to sink and lose their shape, 
the way of propping them was of the utmost importance ; but when 
the biscuit stage was safely attained, the rest was comparatively 
easy. From its composition, this biscuit had the greatest affinity 
for eombination with the vitreous mixture forming the glaze, and 
the result was that this glaze, not being hardened by the biscuit on 
which it had been melted, retained all its softness and so thoroughly 
incorporated the colors of the^painting that, after firing, they looked 
sunk into it. An equal advantage was, that the alkaline nature of 
the biscuit and the low temperature required enabled those soft and 
beautiful ground-colors to be used which-are not to be met with 
on any other potterj’: the green, made from copper of an unequalled 
transparency ; the turquoise, so attractive to the eye that a single piece 
'placed in a room seemed to take all the light to itself; the bleu-de- 
roi, so well named from its riehness ; and that warm, delicate color, 
the rose du Barry. We purposely mentioned the low heat required 
to incorporate the colors with the glaze, because the experienced 
potter knows their riehness decreases with the rise of temperature, 
and this is the reason why, for grounds in hard porcelain, hardly 
more than two colors can be depeuded on,—the blue from cobalt, 
and the opaque, heavy-looking green, from chrome.” 
A large number of vases in hard porcelain, of Sevres man- 
ufacture, were exhibited _ in 1867, and M. Arnoux said of 
them that the forms recently adopted were less beautiful than 
in 1851 and 1855, when Messrs. Dieterle and Klagmann gave 
their assistance to the establishmeut. Among the best were 
a large vase from Dieterle, the iigures paiuted by M. lloussel, 
with the decorations by M. Avise, and all those executed by 
M. Barryat. 
Sevres pAte-sur-pAte. 
• And of that variety of hard porcelain known as pdte-sur- 
päte (paste. lipon paste) to which great attention has beeil 
given at Sevres, Mr. Arnoux observes: 
" The name of pdte-sur-pdle explains sufficiently the proc-, 
ess, which consists in staining the body of the hard porce-