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EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
demand for them at the present time for the same purpose. An agency was established for these tiles in Boston a few years since, and they can now be obtained there at a moderate price.
Vast quantities of the Dutch tiles were imported in England about the middle of the last century for fireplaces, but after the discovery of the method of transferring designs by printing from paper to earthenware, about the year 1752, the manufacture of imitations commenced, and the demand was in part supplied by home-made printed tiles.
Ancient Tiles— Sam arc and.
For the exhibition in the Russian section, of a suite of the curious enamelled tiles of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, from the mosques of Samarcand, we are indebted to the Museum of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, at St. Petersburg. The specimens consisted of capitals, parts of columns and cornices, and of brickwork and tiles. The tiles or plates vary in size from 8 X 10 inches to 12 inches square, and 12 X 16 inches, and even larger. They are heavily and boldly incised, so as to form the designs to a depth of an inch or more, and were evidently moulded, probably in cement or plaster moulds; but some parts of the designs, especially Arabic letters, are undercut, apparently by hand-trimming after the clay had partly dried. The designs and inscriptions are all remarkably sharp, and appear as if carved out. The sections of columns are 15 to 18 inches long, and 3 inches in diameter, half round, with raised spiral ornamentation. The principal colors of the enamelling are dark blue, white, light green and a bluish green. Light buff-colored bricks Avere combined with short pieces of glazed torquoise blue tile set between them, producing an excellent effect.
French- Tiles and Plaques.
In the French Section, the beautiful mantel by Th. Deck, Paris, and the mural tile decoration, by Callinot, were the chief attractions to be noticed under the head of Tiles.
Deck’s mantel, or rather chimney-piece, of enamelled earthenware, is formed of tiles about nine inches square.