REPORT OF MR. NELSON L. DERBY.
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as to produce the drawing in white, with black shading and background, or in black upon a white background. This method of treatment is more satisfactory to those minds which find a sham and pretence in the imitation of stone-work by mastic.
Terra-cotta, as before said, is very extensively employed in Vienna, and many large works are now in operation in the vicinity of the city, where statues, mouldings, columns, capitals, fountains, and in fact all varieties of decoration for exterior and interior purposes, are prepared. This material has been known from the earliest times in history, but has occasionally gone out of use for long periods. The ancient Greeks manufactured vases for ornamental and practical purposes from it. Before them it was employed by the Egyptians, and after them by the Etruscans and Romans. In Pompeii large earthen vessels, capable of containing several hogsheads each, have been excavated, while in Rome, one of still more colossal size has recently been discovered ; pieces of frieze and cornice in good preservation have also came down to us from these times. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries its use was again revived in Northern Italy, and the hospital at Milan, and above all, the court-yards of the Certosa, near Pavia, are resplendent with the material in most gorgeous hues, to be still seeh in unimpaired condition. In England, terra-cotta is manufactured to-day of great hardness and durability, and it is well known that that employed in the Parliament Houses in London is lasting much better than the stone by its side. At the Exposition in Vienna, the finest exhibition of terra-cotta has been made by Austria; the design of all ornamental objects of the substance is marked by taste, and their color,—a light, creamy hue, almost identical with that of the cement mastic described above,—is very pleasing to the eye. It is not so hardly burned as the English varieties, but stands frost well, a ud is sold at a very low price. Life-size statues, of careful workmanship, as durable and well finished as marble, can be had for ten to fifteen dollars each. The most celebrated factory here is the Wienerberger, within a half an hour’s ride of Vienna. Here some four thousand workman are employed iu the manufacture of bricks, form-bricks, tiles, terra-cotta objects, etc. ; and for the purpose of burning, the ring furnace
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