Rozane Royal Information.

I It was like this:
A certain well-known artist whose special delight was the painting of flowers, sat one evening before a half- finished canvas, intently poring, by the last fading rays of daylight, over a book. At last, sighing, he looked up at his canvas across which reflections of the sunset were cast, mingled with deep shadows. "Too bad, too bad," he said, slowly shaking his head and, m his earnestness, speaking half aloud.
"What's too bad, my friend," said the voice of a stranger, who had been drinking in the charm of the scene.
"You startled me," said the artist, turning, "but listen to this," and he lighted a candle while he read, never thinking to ask who the stranger might be. "It is Ruskin I was reading. Mentioning the permanency of ceramic works as compared with those of other branches of art, he says:

' It is surely a severe lesson to us that the best works of Turner could not be shown for six months without being destroyed. I have hope of one day interesting you greatly in the study ot the arts of moulding and painting porcelain; and of turning the attention of the workmen of Italy from the vulgar perishable mosaic to the exquisite subtleties of form and color possible in the perfectly ductile and atterward imperishable clay. And one of the ultimate results of such craftsmanship might be the production of pictures as brilliant as painted glass, as delicate as the most subtle water colors and more permanent than the Pyramids.'

"I was only thinking, when you spoke, what a shame it is that these efforts of mine have to go the way of Turner's. I'd like to try my hand at the clay."
It reads like a romance, but just here began the Rozane idea of reproducing in art pottery fine productions in oils. The stranger, it chanced, was a skilled potter, then engaged in making models for our less expensive potteries. He set aside a laboratory for experiments and so successful was he that, with the aid of his newfound collaborator, the artist, the soft and natural tints of nature were not only transmitted to the clay but preserved, practically unaltered, even through the intense firing to which the ware is subjected.

The natural tendencies of the Ohio clays run to golden browns and yellows, and these tones, artistically blended, formed the body and background of the Erst Rozane and are retained in all designs of this first style, now called Rozane Royal, to distinguish it from the new varieties constantly being designed in our studios.

With permanence in art as the prime motive, the first attempts in Rozane have resulted in the organization of a company of artists attracted by the worthy object which prompted the first experiments. These artists are all earnest students in ceramics and all have ideas of their own which they are anxious to work out. The spirit of experiment always prevails in our studios and laboratories. Moreover, each artist has his or her own style and no design is ever duplicated. This accounts for the wide variety of subjects and the strong individuality found in Rozane.

Holding up an ideal for the perfect pottery, a wellknown authority on ceramics says:

"Let us suppose that a piece of pottery has been painted, and that the action of the fire has made the coloring perennial, so that we find in it a design as everlasting as the ware itself. Let us suppose, further, that the tints are natural, that, in short, the design is all that it should be, and that in the painting nature is displayed as on the canvas—then we would have a specimen of the perfect union of the potter's and of the painter's art."

This is ROZANE ROYAL.

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