Before giving some particulars of these manufactures, it may be well to refer to a name which seems to take precedence of others among the artists in ceramic work in Italy. This man was LUCA DELLA ROBBIA, born in the year 1400. M. Ritter says of him: "He was a sculptor first, and a potter afterward. An artist of the highest power, he was inspired with all the marvelous æsthetic force and subtilty and fertility of his age and of his country. He was not satisfied, as other sculptors are, with form-beauty alone, but cast about to add to his moulded figures the further beauties of coloring and surface-texture. He no doubt well knew the wares of the Moors of Spain, and probably was acquainted with the secret of the tin-glaze already used by the Italian potters. It is needless to assume, as most writers do, that he discovered tin-glazes for himself; but he at any rate adopted the process, and he has left us bass-reliefs and even life-sized statues covered with a fine stanniferous polychrome-glaze, which are among the wonders of Italian Renaissance art, and which to this day are, in their way, unsurpassed triumphs of skill." The portrait (Fig. 66) which we give shows him to be among the strong and able men, who might not only stand before kings, but might be a king himself. [Illustration: FIG. 66.--_Portrait of Luca della Robbia._] There are but few pieces of his work in this country--so far as I know, only these: one a Virgin and Child, in possession of Mr. Prime, of New York; the other now in the loan collection of the Art-Museum at New York, the property of Mrs. Robert M. Grinnell. It is thus described: "The child Jesus lies on a mass of green grass. White lilies with yellow stamens spring up behind him. The Virgin kneels; above her two winged cherub heads, and two arms stretched down hold a crown over her head. On the crown, yellow and blue spots." From the description, the reader will not be likely to rank this among works of the finest art. These works were produced to meet the religious wants of the time and people, and were in great demand. But to-day, for other than religious reasons, they sell for twenty times the prices they then did. In Fig. 67 is to be seen a _retable_, now in the Museum of the Louvre, which is probably among the best examples of his style of work. These bass-reliefs were at first done with white figures on a blue ground; subsequently other colors were introduced, such as greens, browns, and yellows. His four sons and a nephew carried on the same styles of work, but failed to improve upon their master. From the two or three pieces of the work which I have seen, I could value them as examples in the history of ceramics; as _works of art_, for myself not at all.