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EXPOSITION AT VIENNA. •
greater or less degree. Such is the case. The aristocracy of this part of Europe have for ages been noted for their love for fine jewellery; hence here are found wonderfully cunning workmen in gold, silver and precious stones. Influenced on one side by the ruling church, with its highly developed Italian goldsmiths’ art, and on the other side by the nearer Orientals and Hungarians—who have to this day the most gorgeously dressed nobles and gentry in the world when they don the national costume—public taste chiefly governed by the rich, who dazzle with their profuse magnificence, thus has the Vienna jewellery attained a distinctively marked character, combining the richness of the East with the taste of the West. The Museum and School of Arts strive to keep this distinction prominent, as being a trait well worth the perpetuation.
Without further attempting to enumerate the thousand and one trades carried on in Vienna and the surrounding country, many of which are of recent date but now firmly seated, we may notice that the great number of new buildings erected since the Ringstrasse was made, has called into being a new race of cabinet-workers. All the trades which find their occupation in furnishing houses have had an impetus given them by the efforts of the distinguished architects who have designed so much of New Vienna, *to improve the interior decorations and furnishings of the new buildings. Cabinet-making^ carpet-weaving, bronze-work, modelling and frescoing for walls and ceilings, marble-working, etc.—with all these trades the Museum has had direct contact, and has met with the greatest measure of success that has rewarded any of the efforts of the authorities to improve and elevate work and the workers.
The influence of these attempts of the leading minds and teachers of Austria to elevate the taste and improve the skill of all her workers, professional and artisan, bids fair to be crowned with the happiest results. By enlarging the scope of the people’s mental vision, they insensibly polish their manners and aspirations, rendering them more content, cheerful and industrious. By giving them an interest in their daily work other than that which comes from it as being the means of earning a livelihood, an ambition is fos-