We shall say nothing of the Etruscan terra cottas, or of the famous tomb preserved in the Louvre, mindful that we are not here dealing with archaeology, and we accordingly pass, without further delay, to the attractive discoveries in Cyprus and Phoenicia.

When luxury had taken the place of Art, the modelling-stick and clay were necessarily relinquished, for how could mere baked earth find a place amongst such costly materials as marble, mosaics on a gold ground, gilt and enamelled bronzes? Even the middle ages, carved stone and wood into sacred images, leaving clay to the ordinary potter. Hence it was not till the fifteenth century, when there dawned that revival of genius at once so spontaneous and so wonderful, that the artist once more restored to its honourable position a process which adapted itself so readily to the fiery ardour of his conceptions. Hand in hand with the inimitable marbles that they animated with a divine spirit of obedience to their will, Donatello, Mino da Fiesole, Desiderio da Settignano, and their school, entrusted to clay their more rapid conceptions, and notably those admirable busts of contemporaries endowed with such real life. The splendid busts of men recently exhibited by MM.

Dreyfus and Charles Davillier are perfection itself, both in their style and truth to nature. We remember also the charming statuette belonging to M. Edouard Andre representing a young Venetian maiden singing a song, the music of which she holds in her hands. The head thrown slightly back, the eyes raised, the very abandon of the body, all express the rapture of complete inspiration, and so real is this expression, that we find ourselves in the act of listening.

Terra-cotta bust of a man ; Italian work of the fifteenth century. (Baron Ch. Davillier'a Collection.).

Nor did the fervour of the Renaissance artists for the potter's clay stop here. We know that, in his eagerness to meet numerous commissions arriving from all quarters, Luca della Robbia substituted earth for marble, and that in order to shelter this substitution from the effects of the atmosphere he covered it with a vitreous coating or enamel glaze; a strange idea, entirely opposed to the spirit of sculpture, for the white enamel with its vivid lights, its reflections and harsh shadings, deprives the modelling of its harmonious transitions, the form of its pliancy. Luca was himself one of the first to feel this, and in his more choice works he spared the fleshly parts, enveloping the draperies alone in the ceramic coating, choosing colours rather dead than bright, and using polychromy but sparingly even in the accessories and surroundings of his compositions. His example was not followed, and the other members of his family, his nephew Andrea, and Andrea's sons Giovanni, Girolamo and Luca carried the style to excess. Their figures assumed a hard and rigid look in contrast with the deadly whiteness of the flesh. The surroundings, overladen with fruits, flowers and foliage, acquired undue importance, injurious to the statuesque effect of the subjects. In a word, ceramic statues or medallions ceased to belong to high art proper, and passed into the domain of purely ornamental work.

Are we thence to conclude that men of taste should reject the works produced by the school of the Delia Robbia family ? By no means, and we may add that the effect of carved wood furniture will be much improved by a good medallion well placed in its centre. Besides, the Delia Robbias have executed vases in relief heightened with gold, and others surmounted by groups of polychrome flowers and fruits, forming an admirable crown for etageres of the beginning of the Renaissance.

This, however, is almost a digression, as we are here chiefly concerned with the pliant clay that yields to the artist's spontaneous inspiration, while perpetuating the boldness of his touch and of his modelling. But in order to meet with such workmanship it is almost necessary to pass over the sixteenth century, the age of marble and of bronze, merely stopping to consider a few works by Jean de Bologne and Jacques Sarrazin, forming, in a way, the connecting link between the Renaissance and modern times. It was emphatically during the eighteenth century that the enthusiasm for terra cotta rose to the highest pitch, or rather, it would be better to say, it now for the first time found its real place in Art. The charming style of the Watteaus, the Lancrets, the Bouchers, and the Fragonards had broken down all traditions of the past. An unprecedented passion for colour, combined with a graceful ease drawn rather from the world of fashion than directly from nature itself, had created a new art, artificial like the manners of the moment, an art that could scarcely adapt itself to the rigidity of bronze or the coldness of marble. But in clay, the statuaries, and especially the portraitists, found the suitable material ready to hand, which, with its warmth of tone, was capable of harmonising well with the whole range of the artistic productions of the times. Need we appeal to the admirable busts of Mary-Josephine of Saxony by Lemoine, of Louis XIV. by Bouchardon, of Madame du Barry by Pajou, of Moliere, Washington, Franklin, Diderot, Joseph Chenier and Mirabeau by Houdon? These marvellous works, brought together in a public Exhibition, have remained indelibly fixed in the memory of all amateurs.

But the name that of all others has left its mark on the period of transition is that of Clodion, or rather Claude Michel, to give him his real appelation.

Draped female antique figure; terra cotta. (Louvre.).

Venetian girl singing; gilded terra-eotta of the sixteenth century. (M. Edouard Andre's Collection.).