Messrs. Maw have from the first laid themselves out for applying the very highest art and architectural talents to their manufactures, and, in 1856, commissioned Mr. M. D. Wyatt to design a series of patterns of geometrical mosaic, which were issued as a small lithographed volume of fourteen pages. This little book, which first established their reputation as art manufacturers, was subsequently superseded by a much larger volume, published in 1867, including the designs of Digby Wyatt, George Goldie, J. P. Seddon, George E. Street, J. Burgess, and others, as well as the reproduction of all the best obtainable examples of ancient tiles, geometrical, and Roman mosaic, majolica, &c. [Illustration: Fig. 695.] In 1851 Messrs. Maw began the manufacture of plain tiles, geometrical mosaic, and the ordinary encaustic tiles of two colours, to which their productions were for several years limited: but since 1857 their progress has been marked by the continual grafting on of specialities, the yearly production of new colours, and new phases of ceramic art applied to tiles. In 1861 they commenced the manufacture of very small tesseræ for the formation of pictorial mosaics, and produced for the Exhibition of 1862 their well-known mosaic of “_The Seasons_,” here engraved (Fig. 695), and which is now in the South Kensington Museum, from a design expressly made for them by Digby Wyatt. The result was so successful that Mr. Wyatt commissioned Messrs. Maw to execute a mosaic frieze for the inner quadrangle of the New India Office. The production of coloured enamels for the surface decoration of majolica tiles next occupied their attention, and after years of experimenting, all the colours employed in the ancient tiles of Spain or Italy were successfully reproduced, as well as others which were unknown to the mediæval and Moorish manufacturers. A stone chimney-piece, enriched with tiles executed for the International Exhibition of 1862, was their first attempt in the application of enamels and majolica in architectural work. Shortly afterwards the successful decoration of ceilings was carried out in the corridors of the India Office. And now the production of majolica tiles and enamelled terra cotta for all kinds of internal and external decoration forms an important branch of Messrs. Maw’s manufacture. Among the more important of their works in enamelled terra cotta may be mentioned the beautiful staircase executed for Sir D. Majoribanks, a portion of which was exhibited in the International Exhibition of 1871, and the chimney-pieces manufactured for the board-room of the South Kensington Museum, and the Museum of Science and Art, at Edinburgh. Messrs. Maw were the first in this country to produce the transparent celeste, or turquoise blue, employed in ancient Chinese enamels, specimens of which were exhibited in the Paris Exhibition of 1867.