Tour the Castle's Top Floor After its First Fifty Years

The collection was presented by the French Government, and consists of seventy-five pieces, showing all the stages of the manufacture of porcelain. The regular porcelain clay-kaolin from St. Yrieus, the material for the molds and that for glazing are all shown, as well as the molds ready to receive the ware and those used for thick and for thin china and for figures. There are specimens of china glazed and unglazed, and colored china, before and after baking. Among the latter are Persian vases with celadon glaze, before and after baking. There are some choice specimens of egg-shell china and several different forms of vases. A white cup and saucer show a beautiful style of open work in a band-like lace insertion on the outer surface of the cup, the inner being solid, and around the edge of the saucer. This band looks as if ready for ribbon to be run through it, as it often is through lace. It is very thin china. In biscuit ware there is a beautifully finished bust of Mirabeau and a figure called "La Belle Provencale." The factory from which this comes belongs to the French Government, and nothing is made for sale but only for the decoration of palaces in France and for presents to royalty. Supplementing this collection is a magnificent porcelain vase from the same works, which was presented to the Museum by Mr. Straus, the New York importer of china. This vase is over four feet high, and of graceful lines; the prevailing color is pea green, and the designs are traced upon it in gold and delicate fiesh-colored tints. The principal figures are nymphs reclining in graceful positions.

Return to start of the Top Floor of the Castle's Main Hall in 1886