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AUGUST, 1925
" The best of artists hath no thought to show Which the rough stone in its superfluous shell Doth not include; to break the marble spell Is all the hand that serves the brain can do."
—^MICHELANGELO [••EJZlEiaEJaET£]EJEIEigDEJaGlE3Brai51E3E2JElElE3CT T
rr IJ!D Bia EJB EJE) BIE EJZl • B13 EiZ] BI3 QJE Bia Era VOL 3 AUGUST. 1925 NO. 4 CONTENTS
DETAILS OF PORTICO. MONTREAL ART GALLERY Frontispiece
THE MONTREAL ART GALLERY 3
ADAPTABILITY 7
THE MAYFLOWER 8
THE SEARS ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS AT ELGIN.
ILLINOIS iQ
A Los ANGELES STORE FRONT 22
MICHELANGELO AND CELLINI 24
A HANDBOOK OF MARBLE 3'
A LIST OF THE WORLD'S MARBLES 37
Published Monthly by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MARBLE DEALERS GAY AND WATER STREETS. BALTI.MORE, MD lixccuiive Offices: 648 ROCKEFELLER BUILDING. CLEVEI.AND, OHIO. Application for Second-Class Mailing Privilege has been filed at Baltimore. Md. Subscription Price $3.00 per year Single Copies 35 cenrs
C.opynghi K»IJ. NATIONAL ASSCMI AT ION 01 MARBLE DEALERS Details of the portico, Montreal Art Gallery. A Monthly Magazine devoted to the uses of Marble - its universal adaptability, beauty, permanency and economy
VOL. 3 AUGUST. 1925 NO. 4
THE MONTREAL ART GALLERY
A Well-Planned Canadian Structure Built of Marble From the United States
S early as 1849, several citizens and helping in the cultural needs of the com• A artists of Montreal banded together munity. for the purpose of promoting interest The founder of the present Art Associa• in art and beautiful things in general. tion, Benaiah Gibbs, was one of these early Naturally a great deal of diffidence was en• philanthropists. Upon his death in 1877, it countered, and it was only through the was learned that he had bequeathed to the efforts and financial support of small groups .Association a parcel of land upon which to of public-spirited men that the project lived build an Art Gallery; he had also left a sum and blossomed finally in i860 into the Art of money and a number of oil paintings and Association of Montreal. bronzes. With this windfall as a nucleus, the The Association was duly incorporated Council began the building of what is known and its objects were declared to be the en• as the "Old Gallery." Private subscriptions couragement of art, and the establishment helped swell the building fund, and the of properly equipped schools. The Right structure was opened in 1879 the Mar• Reverend Bishop Fulford was elected Presi• quise of Lome, then Governor-General of dent. The institution was empowered in the Canada, and Her Royal Highness Princess customary way to acquire and sell property, Louise. and its position was definitely defined by a In 1893 an addition in Phillips Square to constitution and by-laws. Though art mat• the Old Gallery was completed. This por• ters were given a considerable impetus by tion was formally opened by the Earl of this organization, the cost of maintenance Aberdeen and contained a fine picture gal• had to be borne by a small number of the lery, rooms for antique and life classes and a same earnest men who, by their incentive library built entirely by private subscrip• and enterprise, had sponsored the original tions. In 1892 John W. Tempest had given movement. No government aid was forth• a large collection of paintings of great value, coming ; the only reward was the satisfaction besides a bequest of money for the purpose contained in the knowledge that they were of purchasing paintings. The completion of THROVGH THE AGES
The Montreal Art Gallery is built entirely of white marble from the State of Vermont. It is of classic beauty. the new building proved a new factor in These arrangements were decided upon strengthening the Art School. In 1909 after considerable data had been collected in another magnificent collection of paintings Europe by Edmund M. Wheelwright, ad• was received from the executors of the visor to the building committee. Having estate of William, Agnes and John Lear- been connected with the Boston Museum of mont. In 1912 the New Art Gallery of iMon- Fine Arts, he was also familiar with the con• treal was completed and officially opened clusions reached as a result of the experi• in November by His Royal Highness, the mental research previous to the erection of Duke of Connaught. the Boston Museum. The Museum is located on Sherbrooke The exterior is of Dorset white marble, Street in the heart of the residential section. the same material used in the New York The architects, Edward and W. S. Maxwell, Public Library. The Sherbrooke Street of Montreal, planned a building with an fagade is made doubly impressive by a large exterior of classic character, adapted to fit portico with four huge monolithic Ionic col• the complicated requirements of a modern umns, the length from base to capital being Art Gallery. The lighting conditions de• somewhat over 31 feet. To either side of manded the introduction of side-lighted gal• this portico are flanking wings, projecting leries and top-lighted studios for the School slightly, in the center of each of which is one of Art. large window opening. Above this is a panel THROVGH THE AGES
of sculpture in low relief carried out by the studios, U-bar construction has been adopt• Bronisgrove Guild of Canada under the ed, and with success. The curved eaves architect's direction. "These panels," said permit an abundance of light when most de• Construction, "are conceived in the best sirable and at the same time eliminate the spirit of the Art and represent the traditions snow and ice difficulties so frequently en• of Greek and Roman art being explained to countered with the usual cornice at the groups of sculptors, artists, painters, etc. intersection of the two surfaces of glass. The difficulty of obtaining unity in panels of Entering the Sherbrooke Street side such size and shape has been accomplished by the marble steps and the triple archway, by the introduction of a colonnade in the the entrance hall is reached through small backgf'ound. This touch, rather Italian in vestibules. This entrance hall is a large inspiration, is successful in execution. " vaulted chamber over 60 feet in length and On the first floor are three galleries each about 25 feet in width, extending across the with top lighting, though from the street the greater part of the building. At the far side plain attic screens the skylights. On the is a broad flight of marble steps, with ample Ontario Avenue side, the central wing has landings, leading direct to the first floor large windows for lighting the rooms on the above, while on either side of this mag• grounc floor; those of the first floor open nificent staircase of honor are vaulted pas• into side-lighted galleries. In the Art School sageways leading to the large transverse ex-
Main entrance hall, showing the Botticino marble walls and the alabaster lighting standards. The floor, too, is marble.
[5l ^^^M^rrHROVGH THE AGES
At the head of the Staircase of Honor. hibition hall, beyond which is a large top- the main stairway provide ample accommo• lighted gallery used for lectures and exhibi• dations for checking the wraps and hats of tions. At the top of the grand stairway is a visitors. large rest room, provided with tables, chairs, -Ascending the main staircase, there is palms and also used as an exhibition gallery. reached a top-lighted exhibition hall 6b feet This room, by means of alcoves, affords a by 30 feet. This hall breaks the circuit of the resting place from where one can view a picture galleries. The main gallery facing great part of the first floor, the staircase, Sherbrooke Street is reached by passing entrance hall, etc.—a view that is both com• around the staircase well through exhibition prehensive and interesting. The whole of passages 12 feet wide^ having on the well this portion of the interior is built of solid side columns of Botticino marble with Botticino marble, the columns having solid bronze caps and bases and wrought-bronze bronze bases and capitals, while the railing handrail, and on the opposite side plain of the staircase is of a bronze wrought into walls for exhibition purposes. a rich pattern. The main picture gallery is 63 feet by 33 The combined effect of the Botticino mar• feet, and is top lighted. Adjoining on both ble walls, the marble floors, the vaulted ceil• east and west are other large galleries. On ings with their graceful decorations, is en• the Ontario Avenue side are three side- hanced by the light that comes from eight lighted galleries for the exhibition of special carved alabaster bowls supported on ala• paintings and water colors. "It is of interest baster columns placed around the main to note," said Construction, "that one can entrance hall. This light is softly diffused make the circuit of the six galleries and hall• and is most agreeable as well as effective. ways on the exhibition floor without retrac• To the right of the entrance hall is a large ing one's steps. There is, therefore, always room, 30 by 62 feet, which is used as a a new note of interest in going from one gal• library. On the west is a gallery of similar lery to another, that one misses in a less size for case objects. Rooms at either side of skillfully planned structure."
[6 THROVGH THE AGESl^
Adaptability
"X TO matter how beautiful a thing may be, - - ^ unless it is of practical utility it can never be of real significance. "The useful and the beautiful," said Periander, "are never sepa• rated." No structural material equals marble in beauty. Moreover, none surpasses it in its wide range of practical application. Its position in this respect is unique.
7] THROVGH THE AGES
I 'nilL-rwoiiil fi' I'ndi-rwcioU, Inc
THE MAYFLOWER Washington's Largest and Latest Hostelry
By ROBERT F. BERESFORD
' I tIME is the great transmuter' \\"hen, tists to be at least 30,000 years. So were I in July, 1922, ground was broken and brought to view, in the palm of time, the excavations begun for what is now structural materials of an ancient era. But The Mayflower, Washington's finest and they were of a day that is done. The wood, handsomest hotel structure, it was dis• white when brought to the surface, on ex• covered that betw een the surface and bed• posure to the air turned brown and promptly rock—the same strata, by the way, as that succumbed to the forces of decay. Like the on which rests the Lincoln Memorial—there age they served, these remains crumbled lay an ancient swamp, buried under the away into the dust of the centuries. Today debris of the centuries. Interest in this on the ground of their origin there stands a discovery was heightened when there were great edifice of twentieth century con• unearthed 30 feet below ground a number of struction—of marble and stone, of con• huge stump remains of prehistoric trees, crete and brick, materials produced by the some of which were more than 8 feet in very transmutations of that time whose diameter and of an age estimated by scien- inroads they are designed to resist, and in
lllustrations on pages 8, ii, 14 and 15 courtesy Architecture and Building. THROVGH THE AGES the hands of man reshaped to his \-arying the Nation's Capital in domestic affairs, the uses. constant flow of foreign representatives and And how varied are these uses! It was visitors, and among our own countrymen but yesterday that on this same site a circle the growing habit of travel to the nation's of convent walls sheltered a garden close shrine, has been accompanied by a marked where laughing children trooped in and out expansion in the business area of the city. while stately sisters strolled, reverently With these ine\itable changes Connecti• murmuring their prayers or telling their cut Avenue, formerly the fashionable resi• rosaries. Today on that acreage eleven dential street of the Capital, has become a huge stories of concrete and steel stand up- business thoroughfare of high-class shops reared above city thoroughfares where and has acquired the title, "The p-'ifth daily to its doors sweep an army of motor Avenue of W ashington." cars and a throng of people, in all the rush \ lore, of a magnitude demanded by the and turmoil of modern industrial life. Time city's growth, is situated The Mayflower, is indeed the great transformer! between Seventeenth and De Sales Streets, Du'"ing the past ten years the popula• midway between the White House and Du- tion of Washington has increased from 380- pont Circle, in the heart of the new business 000 to approximately 500,000. This in• zone and adjacent to the exclusive down• crease, due to the augmented importance of town residential section. Occupying a the nation in international affairs and of ground area of b6,ooo square feet The Ma\ -
O Underw'cxjd &' Underwood. Inc. Lobby of the Hotel Mayflower. THROVGH THE AGES
flower has a frontage of 187 feet on Con• rough texture buff brick with terra cotta necticut Avenue. 45b feet on De Sales Street trimmings to match the limestone. All en• and 140 on Seventeenth Street. The per• trances to the building are sheltered by imeter of the building measures nearly a handsome marquises extending to the curb. quarter of a mile. On its Connecticut Av• On entering the building from Connecti• enue frontage the structure is eleven stories cut Avenue there is revealed a vista over high, the height of the remainder of the 400 feet long extending through the hotel building, governed by the city's zoning re• to the entrance on Seventeenth Street. At strictions, being nine stories. Due to the its narrowest point, which is the width of presence of the ancient swamp already the gallery or promenade, this view has a mentioned it became necessary to set the width of 26 feet, broadening into the main foundations of the building on bedrock in lobby and palm court. a "tub" of concrete 40 feet high, 13 feet THE MAIN LOBRV thick at the base, and covering an area of about one and a half acres. In this the The main lobby is 56 feet wide by 87 feet structure rests upon 286 columns imposed long. It is lighted from overhead by a sky• upon a foundation containing 95.000,000 light glazed with a special diffusing glass. pounds of concrete. In size the building is Electric lights concealed above the glass computed to equal 400 ordinary six-room ceiling also light the lobby at night. The city dwellings. The Mayflower represents an very pleasing color effect in the lobby is investment of $11,000,000, including the obtained by the combination of the rich land value and equipment. It contains more hangings and furnishings with the polished than a thousand guest rooms and residential Botticino marble which lines the walls and suites; an entire addition devoted to state faces the columns to the full height of the apartments and suites de luxe; three ball• lobby. The capitals of the columns are rooms; three restaurants; a promenade, or treated in Antique Gold. The floor is of gallery, a tenth of a mile long; spacious pink Tennessee marble, combining beauty lobby; mezzanine and a palm court. The with durability. The stairs leading from associate architects were Robert F. Beres- the lobby upward to the mezzanine and ford and Warren & Wetmore. downward to the garden are of St. Genevie\ e The Mayflower building is of the steel Golden Vein marble. skeleton type of construction with tile and Surrounding the lobby on three sides is a reinforced concrete floor slabs supported mezzanine floor where are writing nooks and on steel beams. In order to eliminate col• lounging spaces for guests. Here the win• umns as much as posisble from the large dow sills are of Verde .Antique. public rooms a great many of the steel Occupying one side of the lobby is the columns above the second floor are carried front office. Of the fixtures here the wood• on huge steel girders which span the width work is .American walnut with marquetry of these rooms. This is one of the features trimmings, but the counter is of Verde which contribute to the general effect of Antique marble, recognized as one of the best spaciousness and noble proportion first material for withstanding the wear which recognized by the beholder. this counter receives. A base of marble The exterior of the building is of Indiana also extends along the front of the office. limestone in the first story. Above this is The lobby is provided with two direct
10 THROVGH THE AGES
O L'nderwood & Underwood. Inc. The beautiful palm court is a large room with walls of Caen stone and a wainscot of St. Genevieve Golden Vein marble. The floor is of Bicsanz American Travertine.
Street entrances, a ladies' entrance in ad• which to see and be seen, and this was ef• dition to the main entrance from Connecti• fectively made use of on the occasion of the cut Avenue giving access from De Sales Charity Inaugural Ball with which The Street. Mayflower was formally opened. During From the main lobby opens the elevator the evening the Vice-President, the gover• lobby, treated in the same materials, while nors of the various states and other high directly opposite the four high-speed pas• officials were admitted through the Con• senger elevators a large semicircular alcove necticut Avenue entrance after the guests forms an attractive feature. This is lined had assembled in the palm court and ball• to its full height with polished Botticino room. As each dignitary arrived he was es• marble. corted through the main lobby to the head of this short flight of stairs. Here he was THE PALM COURT halted while a fanfare was sounded by On leaving the elevator lobby to ap• trumpeters, after which to the music of his proach the palm court a descent of four or state anthem he marched through the palm five steps is made. From the top of these court and promenade and into the ballroom, steps is an excellent vantage point from where a bo.x was in reserve for him. R^rrHROVGH THE AGES
The palm court is 7b feet wide by 86 feet there is a 4-foot wainscot of white .Alabama long, truly a room of abounding spaces. The marble. In w inter the draperies at the win• center portion of the ceiling is a great dome dows are in a general scheme of red and of green latticed glass, through which the gold, while the floor is entirely covered by daylight streams in generous measure. Sur• a figured carpet. In summer the carpet is rounding the court is a wainscot 3 feet high removed and the marble floor exposed to of St. Genevieve Golden Vein marble. view. This is of white Vermont marble .Above this the walls are of Caen stone and squares with Verde .Antique dots at the are interestingly featured at various points corners. Around the room is a border of by the insertion of shallow niches. The Italian Pavonazzo. perspective of these niches is so heightened PROMENADE OR GALLERY by converging lines of wood lattice and Jaune Nile Fleuri and Belgian Black mar• Continuing along the axis of the vista ble as to give an effect of considerable depth. first viewed on entering the building, and To the middle of the south wall of the palm crossing the palm court, one enters the court the eye and ear are at once attracted promenade. .At this point of entry is a set by the cool splash of water in a charming of glazed doors which permit the promenade w all fountain, a large and beautifully shaped and ballroom being completely shut off sea shell of Jaune Nile Fleuri supported by from the remainder of the first floor for the two dolphins, while above it a mask spouts purposes of private functions. The prom• into it a tinkling stream of water. From a enade is 26 feet wide and 212 feet long. It concealed spotlight in the ceiling a shaft of has a coffered ceiling. .All openings have light plays on the fountain, flooding it, yet molded architraves of white .Alabama mar• not spilling out upon the polished marble ble and the same marble is used for the that serves as a background to the whole. wainscot. .At intervals against the walls The fountain base is of St. Genevieve Gol• are lighting standards consisting of lofty den Vein marble. At each side of the foun• pedestals of Verde .Antique, fluted and tain are polished marble monolith columns. carved and surmounted by elaborate metal The floor of the court is of Biesanz .American candelabra. The floor is of white V^ermont Travertine. marble with squares of Verde .Antique and border of the same. PRESIDENTI.AL REST.AUR.ANT Opening from the palm court is the main BALLROOM restaurant, a room 48 feet wide by 169 feet It is a common experience in hotels long. It is lighted by a series of nine long where the ballroom is situated above the windows opening on the De Sales Street street floor, to find a large ball or conven• side. The keynote of this room is the semi• tion completely demoralizing the elevator official atmosphere produced by the wall service for guests. .At The Mayflower this decorations, which consist of the coats-of- condition cannot obtain since the ballroom arms of the States of the Union and oil is situated on the ground floor. .Although portraitsof George Washington, John.Adams. The Mayflower's grand ballroom has held Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. as many as 1,800 persons, there is always The ceiling is ornamented in low relief freedom of access to it without disturbance .'\s a protection to the walls and columns to the other occupants of the hotel. En- 1 >^-i THROVGH THE AGES
I 'nderwood &' Undenx'ood. Inc
Thc^charming marble fountain in the palm court is of Jaune Nile Fleuri marble, of rich yellowish brown.
[1^1 THROVGH THE AGES
Underwood S; Underwood. Inc. The ballroom wainscot is St. Genevieve Golden Vein with a Black and Gold base. trance to it is had through the promenade the opposite end of the ballroom is a motion on one side, and at one end through the picture booth, a unique feature of whose foyer, or small ballroom, and to this entire complete equipment is a periscoping device section a separate street entrance of five by which pictures are projected to the screen doorways, reserved exclusively for functions, from the balcony without interference from is provided on the Seventeenth Street side the huge crystal chandeliers that hang of the building. from the ceiling. The ballroom is also equipped with a battery of high-power lights The ballroom has a richly ornamented which permit the taking of motion pictures vaulted ceiling. This ornament is carried without the use of the usual flash-lights. down the sides of the columns until it reaches the top of the wainscot of St. The entrances to the ballroom are of such Genevieve Golden Vein marble. Below the width as to permit the use of this great salon wainscot the base is of Italian Black and for automobile exhibition purposes. The Gold marble. These two marbles form a steps leading from the promenade into the very rich and effective color coir.bina- ballroom are supported on each side by tion. The floor, for dancing purposes, curved monoliths of Italian Black and Gold is of patterned maple, specially selected marble, chosen for their permanence and for color. At one end of the ballroom is a stability, as well as for their beauty. stage which, by concealed apparatus, may be extended several feet into the room an J FOYER when not in use retired to the wall line. At .At the east end of the ballroom an elserv-
14 THROVGH THE AGES
ing as an assembly hall as well as a room for lobby and easily accessible by elevators and private dances, luncheons or banquets, is broad staircases. The garden has a large the foyer, or small ballroom. The decorative dance floor of maple with a border of E^el- treatment of this room is striking and gian Black marble. The table spaces sur• unique. In the French Chinoise style—the rounding the dance floor are of .Xmerican French interpretation of Chinese art—the Kato stone in irregularly broken slabs. The walls are of vivid blue with Chinese murals walls, of rough stucco, are softly tinted. One in gold, the ceiling being in the form of a side of the room consists of a series of al• large oval dome decorated with Chinese coves suggestive of latticed arbors, each figures. The floor is of maple, the base of alcove seating about a dozen persons. The Verde Antique marble. ceilings over the table are handsomely cof• fered, that over the dance floor giving an THE GARDEN outdoor effect by crossed latticed beams Washington society is enthusiastically from which lanterns are hung, the spaces be• patronizing the tea. dinner and supper tween being painted to represent the eve• dances that are a feature of The Mayflower's ning sky. At the farther end of the garden entertainment. These are held in the garden, a latticed colonnade encloses a charming a spacious room situated beneath the main figure fountain of St. Genevieve Golden
© I'ndiTttixid &' I'ndcrw-fKxi. Inc. The garden, though below the street level, has an out-of-door aspect.
15 for each of the various classifications of help. Vein marble, with a mural background rep• The shower partitions are of pink Tennessee resenting the city of Washington and sur• marble chosen for sanitary reasons for its rounding country including a glimpse of Mt. impermeability. Toilet partitions are of Vernon, all quaintly conceived in landscape White Vermont marble. The Mayflower has effect. The entire atmosphere of the garden its own completely equipped laundry for its is suggestive of the open air, although the own purposes and the service of its guests. room is in reality well below the street level It maintains also its own valet establish• under the main lobby floor. In summer the ment. garden is a delightful spot, cooled by a special refrigerating system by which the MECHANICAL PLANT warm air is drawn from the room and re• Accomplishing the entire work of heating placed with a stream of fresh air that has the building in winter and air cooling it in been washed and cooled by forcing through summer, furnishing steam and power to the hundreds of jets of ice water. The air is thus main kitchen and laundry, manufacturing kept constantly in motion and is fresh and all the ice used in the hotel as well as re• exhilarating. Entering the garden on a hot frigerating all ice boxes throughout the summer day one will soon be so comfortably building, supplying hot and cold water to cool that dancing has an irresistible appeal. all fixtures and running ice water to all By a special lighting apparatus the garden guest rooms, supplying artificial ventilation is bathed in a flood of varied hues while in to all public rooms, operating a central the center a revolving crystal ball reflects a vacuum cleaning department, and numerous kaleidoscopic play of colors upon the dancers. other services, The Mayflower's mechanical plant is a huge and complete affair. The M.MN KITCHEN boilers for heating and power are fired by A hostelry of such proportions as The May• fuel oil burners. flower demands, of course, a kitchen of com• Throughout the building the interior fin• modious size. The main kitchen is 130 feet ish is of the highest quality material. .All wide by more than 200 feet long. In this is rooms and corridors have moulded plaster installed the finest equipment and finish that cornices and paneled wall mouldings. The money could buy. The kitchen has a corridors are broad and well lighted. The capacity of 6,500 meals a day. 11 is electric• main corridor continues through to the ex• ally equipped throughout, special apparatus terior wall where two large windows afford performing many of the manual labors of light and air. All corridors and floors are the establishment. Vegetable peelers, ice carpeted with a heavy figured carpet to cream freezers, bread mixers, meat choppers, within 2 feet of the walls, where borders of drink mixers, subveyors and endless belts polished white Alabama marble carry to the for conveying soiled dishes from the serving wall bases. All windows throughout the pantries to the dish-washing machines, bread building are glazed with plate glass. All and meat slicers, etc.—all are electrically partitions are of fireproof materials, the door operated. For the service of employee frames and trim being of steel as a further cafeterias are maintained, one each for white precaution against the spread of fire. and colored help. There are also separate As a public hostelry The Mayflower is un• locker rooms, shower baths and lavatories questionably unique in one important re- [•6] THROVGH THE AGES
spect: the luxuriousness of its appointments. Presidential and Vice-Presidential suites, Its furnishings are the selections of an im• the most sumptuously appointed hotel apart• peccable taste and discretion ranging with• ments in the world. Nothing to equal them out stint among art collections and the is to be found anywhere in Europe or the products of factories famous for the authen• Western Continent. Each a suite of thirteen ticity of their reproductions of period styles rooms planned and equipped for permanent and museum pieces. The rooms and apart• residence with drawing-room, dining-room, ments are not ""furnished" with ""sets"; no library office, five guest rooms each with two alike, they are appointed with carefully private bath and glass-enclosed shower with chosen individual pieces, each having its silver fittings, kitchen and servants' rooms, special interest for grace, beauty and refine• they are as luxurious as any Old World ment, and in careful harmony with the color palace, together with all the modern con• schemes of the rooms. These, with their veniences inseparable from American ideals drapes and bed-hangings of silk, many with of comfort. With their Oriental rugs, tables, over drapes of satin damask; bed lamps and consoles and cabinets of painted lacquer and boudoir lights with silken shades ; objects of marquetry, chairs upholstered in hand- art in harmonious colorings ; original water- woven tapestries and satin damasks, crystal, colors, mezzotints and etchings on the cloisonne and bronze and marble objects of walls—have all the distinction and charm of art, original oils and engravings on the walls, private dwellings. Each guest room has out• satin and taffeta hangings to carry out the side exposure and private bath, with cir• color harmonies, these are rooms indeed fit culating ice water. In the more than loo for the royal and other distinguished guests semi-housekeeping suites including living- of the nation for whose entertainment they room 26 feet long, dining-room, bedrooms are designed. On the remaining seven floors and baths, perfectly equipped kitchens with of this annex, one to a floor, are the suites individual ice machines, electric ranges and de luxe consisting of drawing-room and five complete service of china, linen and silver, bed chambers, but little less superbly ap• is given every facility for the comfort and pointed than the Presidential and Vice- convenience of permanent guests. An un• Presidential suites above, and designed for usual feature of these apartments are the guests who demand the ultimate in luxury open fireplaces designed for a real open fire and privacy. and faced with Italian Botticino marble. The lighting features of the hotel, of Special attention to requirements for quiet elaborate and beautiful design, are striking has designed these rooms with air spaces be• and effective parts of its interior furnishing. tween the walls for deadening the sound. No Throughout the length of the promenade, entrance door opens directly from the cor• in the palm court with its tinkling fountain, ridor to the room, a small private lobby the Presidential restaurant and main lobby, being provided in every case at the en• the lighting effects are elaborate and beauti• trance. A private elevator and entrance ful. The wiring in The Mayflower was in• lobby serve these apartments. stalled at a cost of $250,000. High-tension Occupying the entire ninth and tenth current entering through the sub-basement floors of a million-dollar annex just com• supplies the entire hotel through several pleted are the two state apartments, the groups of large transformers. Several hun-
[I7l THROVGH THE AGES dred motors, ranging from '4 to 150 horse- ments and the completeness of its ser\ ice jX)wer. operate the \'arious electrical mech• have appealed instantly to travelers, li is anisms throughout the hotel. To this end a concrete expression of the principle that almost 100 miles of wire were utilized and the artificial and the commonplace are not six carloads of conduit were employed. necessarily germane to the equipment of In the first few months of its existence .American hotels, and that the discriminating The Mayflower has scored an unqualified public does not need to compromise with success. The luxuriousness of its appoint• unbeautiful surroundings when it tra\'els.
1
One of the marble statues in the promenade ol the Mayflower Hotel, Washington, D.C THRQVGH THE AGES
pi
THE SEARS ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS AT ELGIN. ILLINOIS
r Elgin, Illinois, there has existed for a Sears is a member of the Board. Moreover number of years the Elgin Academy the Judge is a former student of Elgin A and Junior College. This institution Academy: his father was the first principal: has lately attracted considerable attention in his mother the first dean of women, and his the world of art because of the dedication, a wife a former student and teacher. The little over a year ago, of a splendid new- building is, therefore, truly a Sears Vle- building intended to house a collection of morial. representative American paintings. During the years that Judge Sears dreamed This structure—the Laura Davidson Sears over the project, and when his plans were .Academy of Fine Art—bears the name of nothing more than nebulous imaginings, he the wife of the donor. Judge Nathaniel C. had made up his mind definitely to one Sears, of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and form• thing: that he would not consider as worthy erly of Elgin. .As it stands today, it realizes of his brain child any material other than a long-cherished dream of Judge Sears, to white marble. The finished structure justi• build a monumental home for his collection fies his vision. of paintings and present it to the Elgin The building was begun in the spring of .Academy in the name of his father, mother 1923, and was erected under the supervision and wife. Judge Sears is chairman of the of Harry F. Rich and his associate, Harry Board of Trustees of the Academy, and Mrs. F. Robinson, architects of Chicago.
19 THROVGH THE AGES
The north front, showing the main entranee and portico.
It is a huge imposing structure of white some frieze, extending around the three Georgia marble, rectangular in shape and sides of the loggia. This is a copy of the artistic in its simple decorative details. Elgin marbles o f the frieze of the Parthenon Every piece of the marble that was used and forms the chief decorative feature of the was shipped to Elgin carefully crated, after east facade. Its position, however, high up selection had been made at the quarries. on the walls, and half hidden by the mono• Uniformity of tone was the end aimed for, liths, only affords a greater contrast to the and the consequent lack of variation be• severely dignified lines of the design. tween the blocks, as well as their sparkling There are five exhibition rooms and a and almost iridescent whiteness, has a great curator's office, the latter with a mezzanine deal to do with the beauty of the exterior. floor reached by a winding steel stairway. The end walls are unbroken; the sides, one All the exhibition rooms are top lighted, of which contains the main entrance, are with powerful reflector units for night light• adorned by marble balustrades over the ing. The interior is finished in mahogany cornice. The marble facing of the walls is with neutral gray canvas (Monk's cloth) 3 inches thick. walls. The basement contains shipping room The building fronts east, facing the old and lavatories. Academy Main Hall directly opposite. Mar• As mentioned before, the gallery is de• ble walks lead to the entrance portico, or voted entirely to American art. It houses, loggia, the floor level of which is reached by chiefly, the Sears collection of 127 paintings ascending a short flight of four low, broad by .American artists, and this fine display steps, leading between six massive mono• includes the work of practically every great lithic columns of the Grecian Doric order, artist since the growth of American art at• gracefully fluted. The architrave above is tained a degree of development worthy of inscribed, in bold letters, with the name of recognition as such. Xo new paintings are the Academy. allowed to appear in the gallery until their Within the marble porch the floor has authors have gained sufficient reputation to Creole marble borders with white panels. command notice in contemporary books of Above the simple main doorway is a hand• criticism.
[20] THROVGH THE AGES
That the $350,000 spent by the donor on "And now as a new idea in the collection the gallery and paintings has been wisely of Americans, the Sears Academy of Fine disbursed is proved by the favorable notices Arts at Elgin, Illinois, has inaugurated a in art circles. Typical of these comments is historical sequence of American Art, and is the following extract from the Baltimore Sun: endeavoring to obtain an example of the "Retrospective exhibitions which tend to work of every American painter, be he gather from distant corners of the land master or apprentice." hitherto unknown as well as works of Early Whether the last assertion is literally true Americans have been steadily increasing in or not. certainly the Sears Academy pos• number and efficacy. The work of Benjamin sesses a representative showing of the work West, at the Philadelphia Art Alliance in of many painters in history, from Pieter 1920, became the forerunner of comprehen• Vanderlyn to Gardner Symons and Jane sive exhibitions of canvas by Thomas Sully Peterson. In addition, the Octagon contains and the three Peals staged in successive years marble copies of six statues, including at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Canova s Venus and Dannecker's Ariadne.
Details of the portico of the Laura Davidson Sears Academy of Fine Arts, at Elgin, Illinois.
[21] THROVGH THE AGES
A LOS ANGELES STORE FRONT A Black and Gold Marble Treatment that Suggests Many Artistic Possibilities
'np'HERE will probably be at the end of The store occupies the first floor corner I the next ten years at least ten cities under the Los Angeles Athletic Club, and in .America with a population ex• the remodeling of the space ran considerably ceeding the two million mark. One of these in excess of $200,000. The material used in is almost certain to be Los Angeles. the exterior of this building was Black and Los Angeles is growing rapidly. Every Gold marble, in combination with very resident is a booster for his city and with elaborately designed statuary bronze, the very good reasons. The climate, the natural latter for the show-window frames and pil• advantages of location, the rich soil, furnish asters, and for the pilaster bases and caps. incontrovertible arguments for a residence The architects were L. and E. Emanuel, of in the coming metropolis of the West. San Francisco. Added to these is the spirit of progressive- The shop has attracted considerable at• ness displayed by the people of the city. An tention, and has been pronounced one of the interesting evidence of this spirit is the new- most artistic jewelry stores in the world. jewelry store of Feagans and Company When asked for the inspiration which pictured above. This building is located on prompted and supported them in the plan• the corner of Seventh and Olive Streets, the ning and conception of this splendid store. center of the finest shopping district in the Mr. George E. Feagans, the president of the city, and the most exclusive. company, said: "First, we chose our archi- THROVGH THE AGES tect-designer and with him made a com• to be solid plate glass, bronze and marble plete tour of America and a careful survey from sidewalk to upper window coping, re• of America s finest stores and shops—and quiring therefore many tons of marble. So we say proudly that America has the finest special shipment from a foreign country at shops and stores in the world. After a care• first seemed prohibitive. However, we ful analysis of all this gathered and tabu• found this marble right here at home in Los lated data, we started our drawings and spec• .Angeles. As a result, we have a marble ex• ifications, this consuming well over a year, terior in perfect harmony with our interior: for we made many changes and rejections. and when we consider the size of our ex• " When our plans, therefore, had progressed terior, 141 feet, with every single bit of mar• far enough so that we knew definitely the ble matched and fitted carefully to place, moti" and foundation for our treatment, then we believe that it is without parallel in we went then to Europe and to Paris and to America. " the Louvre—that great museum of art, and Feagans and Company were not the first architecture and painting, the equal of to make use of this very colorful material which no other city in the world can offer. for shop fronts, not even in Los Angeles. It There we found the color scheme for our has been held in very high regard among the ceiling—soft, rich golds, together with architects of this country for a number of subtle Gobelin blues, with here and there for years; of late, however, it has begun to en• added interest a bolder dash of color. joy a very much increased vogue, being used in the palaces of Versailles we found frequently for interior work as well, notably crystal pendant candelabra chandeliers, in the lobby of the fine new American Radi• hung there in the extravagant days of the ator Building in New York City. Louis oeriods, and we found manufacturers in Paris that could not alone duplicate them but improve on them and make them for us more beautiful and more practical than the original. '"French display tables and display cases, richly embellished were also sought and found in Paris. ".Again we found in Paris marble of every hue and texture from quarries dating back, some of them, to the days of Babylon. There seemed but one marble suitable for our adopted motif to combine with real bronze for our outside work and that was the Black and Gold marble of Italy. This mar• ble is quarried on the Isle of Palmaria, in the Gulf of Spezia and at Partovenere, near Spezia, in Liguria. It is known as Portoro or. more familiarly as Black and Gold. But our total of window frontage was 141 feet. Detail of one of Feagans and Company 's display windows, showing the marble. [231 THROVGH THE AGES
David, by Michelangelo. Finished in 1503. it stood in the Piazza at Florence for 369 years, the marble undamaged by exposure to the air. MICHELANGELO AND CELLINI
The Foremost Sculptor and the Most Gifted Goldsmith of the Renaissance in Italy PART I
I iHE apotheosis of Italian sculpture," but nevertheless the leading goldsmith of I wrote Ernest H. Short, "connects it- his time, was Benvenuto Cellini, the Floren- self as inevitably with Michelangelo tine swashbuckler, as the topmost peak of Elizabeth drama— Any attempt to offer here anything more Shakespeare—connects itself with the dra- than a brief mention of some of Michel- matic hills and hillcocks which led up to it." angelo"s extant works and a few pertinent Michelangelo alone was able to give to incidents of his career would be impossible, marble the power to express the profoundest We can only hope to show, in a general way, thoughts of nature and humanity which the high lights of his life, and his connection were conceived during the Italian Renais- with the political factors of his age. sance. Not to be mentioned in the same Born at Caprese, near Arezzo, in 1475, he breadth with Michelangelo as a sculptor, grew up in the village of Settignano, three Illustrations courtesy Thomas Machen, architect, Baltimore, Maryland.
24 THROVGH THE AGES miles from Florence. His nurse was the began to spread. It happened one day that daughter of a stone-carver and the wife of a Granacci took him to the gardens of the stone-carver, so that it was small wonder he Medici at San Marco, where Lorenzo had early delighted in the use of the chisel. A collected many antique statues. He was youthful friendship with Grenacci, a painter, struck by their beauty, and spent many days a pupil of Domenico Ghirlandaio, one of the copying them. One in particular, the head most famous painters of the day, also en• of a faun, he determined to reproduce in couraged him in the use of the brush. marble. He secured a piece of this material A painted wood panel which he made at from some masons engaged on the premises this time drew considerable attention to his and, having borrowed a chisel, set to work ability. When this was followed by such a and soon had it completed. His imagination faithful copy of a drawing of a head that the supplied such details of the face as were two could not be told apart, his reputation missing in the original antique, and this
The bust of Brutus, begun by Michelangelo for Cardinal Ridolfi in 1534 and finished by Calcagni. It is now in the National Museum, Florence. I THROVGH THE AGES
i
One of the "Eiound Captives " presented by Angclo to Roberto degli Stroizi. They were intended for the tomb of Julius. They arc now in the Louvre Museum. with such fine effect that the work attracted work, a crucifix in wood for the high altar of the attention of Lorenzo himself. He was Santo Sprito in Florence, has also disap• taken into the household of the Magnificent peared, though Condivi, a friend and pupil and stayed there for two years, meeting of the sculptor, speaks in detail of both of many notables and persons of nobility and these. working constantK- in the gardens, pursuing He left Florence for Bologna about the his studies. time that the House of Medici was hunted Following the death of Lorenzo in i40-- out of Florence, and lived a little over a year he returned to his father's house. He is with Gian .Aldovrandi, a gentleman of means reputed to have bought a large piece of mar• and a member of the Sixteen. Here he did ble, that had for many years been exposed the marble figures for the Ark of San to the wind and rain, and carved a Hercules Domenico, a San Petronio and a kneeling out of it that was ultimately sent to France. angel. Nothing is now known of this, .'\nother Returning to his native town, he set out
26 THROVGH THE AGES to carve a marble God of Love. He was per• Michelangelo carve for him a cupid. now in suaded b\- Lorenzo di Pier Francesco to gi\ e the Victoria and Albert .Museum. to this cupid an appearance of age, so that A short time afterward he carved for the it could be passed off as an antique. The Cardinal Rovano, from a block of marble, trick was successful and the statue was that splendid statue of Our Lady, now in a bought by a dealer and sold to Cardinal di chapel in the nave of St. Peter's. The San Giorgio for 200 ducats. Madonna is seated on the stone upon which In 149b he went to Rome and had no the cross was erected, with her dead son on difficulty obtaining commissions for work. her lap—the story of a di\ ine grief of a For Jacopo Galli he carved a marble Bac• mother for an all-perfect offspring. chus, of merry aspect, with squinting eyes, Family affairs compelled his return to and holding a cup in his right hand and a Florence and while there he carved the bunch of grapes in his left. An impish and colossal David, now in the Accademia dcllc alert little satyr at his feet furtively nibbles Belle Arti of f'lorence, where it was placed at these grapes. This work in form repre• for its better preservation in 1873. It was sents the decadent Graeco-Roman execu• completed in 1504 out of a block of marble tion of the later empire. Jacopo also had brought from Carrara by .Agnostino di
Marble blocks at Marina, taken from Italian quarries, awaiting shipment. l^7 THROVGH THE AGES
Duccio. In this endeavors to save labor in he saw a crag that overlooked the sea. which the shipping, Agnostino had roughed this made him wish to carve a colossus that block out on the quay itself in such a would be a landmark for sailors from a long clumsy way that "neither he nor any one way off, insighted thereto principally by the else had the courage to put their hands to suitable shape of the rock from which it the block to carve a statue out of it, either could have been conveniently carved, and of the full size of the marble or even one by emulation of the ancients, who, perhaps much less" (Condivi). The Office of Works with the same object as Michelangelo not to had come in possession of this stone; they be idle, or for some other end, left several had sent for Michelangelo and offered it to records unfinished and sketched out, which him. He accepted it and extracted from it give a good idea of their powers. And of a the statue above mentioned, "so exactly to surety he would have done it if he had had size that the old surface of the outsides of time enough, or the business upon which he the marble may be seen on the top of the had come had allowed him. He afterwards head and in the base." much regretted not having carried it out. Michelangelo also executed, about this Enough marbles quarried and chosen, he time, a marble group of the Madonna and took them to the sea coast and left one of Child, now in the Cathedral at Bruges: and his men to have them embarked. He him• a series of Madonna reliefs, strongly remi• self returned to Rome, and because he niscent of Donatello's style. stopped some days in Florence on the way, The Pieta and the David are typical when he arrived at Rome he found the first works of Angelo's first period—a period in boat already at the piazza of St. Peter's, which may be seen at their height the in• behind Santa Caterina. where he had his fluences of the spirit of humanism. It is. workshop near the Corridore. The quantity however, the works of his second period of marble was immense, so that, spread over that indicate a deep philosophical poetry the piazza, they were the admiration of all that inspired his most characteristic labors and a joy to the Pope, who heaped im• —the monuments in the Medici Chapel at measurable favors upon Michelangelo: and Florence and the Tomb of Julius 11. Neither when he began to work upon them again and was ever finished, unfortunately, but we can again went to see him at his house, and guess at the latter from rough sketches, talked with him of monuments and other some measurements and the well-known matters as with his own brother; and in Moses. order that he might more easily go to him, Julius II called him to Rome in 1505 to the Pope ordered that a drawbridge should prepare a design for a sculptural monument be thrown across from the Corridore to the on a gigantic scale. The plan included rooms of Michelangelo, by which he might thirty-eight life-sized statues, and Julius visit him in private." sent him to Carrara to quarry the necessary The great dream of the sculptured mau• marbles. An interesting account of this soleum was never realized. A \-aster work trip is given by Condivi as follows: had captivated the fancy of Julius—the re• "Michelangelo stayed in these mountains building of St. Peter's. Added to this was more than eight months with two workmen the thought implanted in the mind of the and his horse, and without any other salary Pope by Bramante that to build one's except his food. One day whilst he was there tomb in one's lifetime was unlucky. Bra-
28 THROVGH THE AGES
\
Modem quarries at Carrara. Michelangelo spent manv months in these mountains selecting blocks for the sculptural monument propo.sed bvjulius. Condivi afterward aptly called the episode "The Tragedy of the Tomb."
[^9] THROVGH THE AGES mante had nc\er been friendly to .Angelo. efforts to have him brought back. While knowing that the latter was familiar with there, he finished the cartoon for the Sala the errors of construction in such works as del Consiglio. He then went to Bologna, Saint Peter's, the Corridore di Belvidere, where, ha\ ing received pardon from Julius the Convents di San Pietro and Vincula and for his previous independent actions, he other structures, and he therefore sought to executed a colossal bronze statue of the have .Angelo removed from Rome, or at Pope for the fagade of S. Petronio, com• least deprived of the Pope's favor. He sug• memorating victory over the Bentivogli. gested to the Pope that Angelo be assigned For almost twenty \ ears after the project the labor of painting the ceiling of the Sis- for the Julian Tomb, .Michelangelo produced tine Chapel. no great sculpture. .After the Bologna Michelangelo soon found his position in statue was completed, he repaired to Rome Rome intolerable and secretly departed for and was engaged until 1512 in decorating Florence. This was in 1506 and he remained the Sistine Chapel vault. His next statue in Florence for six months, despite Julius' was the Christ, in the \liner\ a at Rome.
(Part 2 will follow in September issue.)
The statue of the "Ri.sen (Christ." executed by Michelangelo in I 5ZO and forwarded in the rough to Rome, where it was finished by Pietro L-rbino and Federigo Frizzi. It is now in the Church of the Minerva.
30 THROVGH THE AGES
A HANDBOOK OF MARBLE
It is the purftose of the National Association of Marble Dealers, to publish as soon as possible, a handbook on marble The ma• terial contained in this book will be contributed by those best qualified to speak in an authoritative manner on the various matters treated. This is the fourteenth in.ttallment and contains part of the fourth chapter, written by John Stephen Sewell. President of the Alabama Marble Company. These extracts will probably undergo some slight changes before appearing later in book form.
CHAPTER IV—Finishing Marble (Continued)
ROBABLY any abrasive wheel will cut can be exposed, the wheel loses its cutting P faster as its speed increases. When a power. The wheels are made by mixing car• projectile strikes a steel plate at high borundum grains of a proper size with some velocity, it often goes through and suffers sort of binding material and moulding to little deformation itself; the work is nearly proper shape. The wheels may be subse• all done on the target; at a lower velocity quently dried, or even baked, or burned in the projectile may break up and the plate be a kiln. The bond used in wheels for cutting little camaged. A piece of soft tallow candle marble must wear away about as fast as the may be fired through a plank, making a grains of carborundum crumble, so as to clean hole—but the candle, with diminish• keep fresh, sharp edges and corners always ing velocity, is sure to be splattered over exposed and available for cutting. In the some subsequent target beyond the plank. case of all bonding materials which are sat• Given sufficient velocity, a drop of water isfactory from this point of view, there is a would similarly pierce a plank, or kill a man. very moderate tensile strength, hence a very The stream of water issuing from a nozzle distinct limit to the peripheral speed of the under very high pressure will behave like a wheels which is possible without a danger of rod of steel if struck near the nozzle with a rupture from centrifugal force. stick or bar; it may be impossible to cut When carborundum wheels are working through the stream with an axe. on marble, they tend to become glazed, so to A particle of carborundum traveling at speak, with pulverized material; this greatly high speed in contact with marble does work diminishes their cutting power. Jets of wa• on the marble in a manner somewhat analo• ter, under considerable pressure, directed gous to that done by a projectile on a target. against the work and the adjacent parts of Probably if the speed of the carborundum the wheel, are of considerable assistance in could be indefinitely increased, the rate of diminishing this trouble; a little fine sand cutting would also continuously increase— thrown in with the water from time to time but whether the two rates would be propor• will also help. But it is always necessary to tional to each other or connected by some suspend operations from time to time and other law is not known. However, there are dress the cutting surfaces of the wheel with a limits in this direction also. Carborundum tool made for the purpose. Of course, unless is about as hard as diamond, but not nearly the wheel cuts into the work as fast as the as tough. A sharp projecting point or corner work is fed against it, the wheel will break, of a carborundum crystal soon crumbles or, if it is very stout, the machine will stall away, and unless fresh points and corners in some way.
[31 ] THROVGH THE AGES
A carhoriindum rriiichinc equipped with auxiliary actachmcnls for turning a column base. The base here is made up of four pieces.
It is evident that, in dealing with the of cutting increases. The curve that ex• speed and cost of carborundum w ork, we are presses the relation seems to approximate confronted with a function of many vari• one branch of an equilateral hyperbola. ables and that some of them are susceptible 2. Rates of cutting varying from 6 or 7 of control only within narrow limits. So far cubic inches per minute to about 50 cubic as known, no thorough and complete scien• inches per minute have been observed. The tific investigation of this question has ever greater rate was on coping which included been made. From some tests carried out by deep cuts, the lesser was on moldings; prob• competent engineers, the following isolated ably with delicate members. facts have been established: 3. The percentage of time actually cut• I. Within the limits of the total power ting to the total running time was very vari• available, the power cost per cubic inch of able. grinding away marble diminishes as the rate The engineer conducting the tests re-
32 THRQVGH THE AGES
marked that no reliable basis for predicting of course, before the solid battery of wheels costs had been found, and that it was not is put in place. likely to be found, until practice was at Some lathes are horizontal and some least approximately standardized. The mar• vertical. The vertical lathes resemble, in ble working fraternity may add to that, that some respects, large boring machines. They standardization, in the sense intended, is not possess advantages for handling cranky and possible now, and is not likely to become so, unsound marbles—especially where there is from all that can at present be seen. How• danger that a long shaft would break under ever, in a later chapter, an analysis of this its own weight, in a horizontal lathe. subject will be presented which, it is be• In the latter case, however, it is always lieved, may be made the basis of a reason• possible, by turning or cutting short sections ably accurate system of estimating average of the shaft to circular form, to provide in• costs. termediate rollers supporting the shaft at TURNED WORK several points so it may be turned in a hori• zontal position. This is, in some respects, the simplest If a shaft is to be made of marble that is form of cut work. If individual monolithic unsound, a hole may be bored through its drums or shafts are of considerable size, it center, from end to end, and a steel pipe or pays to saw them square in the gangs, then shaft inserted to give it the necessary cut them to octagon shape either in the strength. gangs or with a diamond saw. Shafts and In such a case, the hole through the drums can be turned with carborundum column shaft must be larger than the pipe wheels of plain rectangular diametral sec• or the piece of steel shaft, so that the latter tion because the entasis bar will keep the can be inserted and then solidly grouted in. cylindrical face of the wheel always tangent Columns or drums can be fluted in a to the finished surface. Of course, circum• lathe, by means of a suitably shaped wheel, ferential fillets and beads must be cut with a mounted and travelling on the entasis bar, wheel shaped to the proper profile. from one end to the other. Of course, in Columns in which segments are built up this case, the lathe does not turn. The ends into drums can have the segments assembled of the flutes in Corinthian and Ionic columns into drums on wooden centers and turned must be finished by hand. as though they were monolithic, or the seg• In a vertical lathe, the flutes, in the case ments may be separately finished to proper of individual drums, may be cut out by patterns and templates in the planer type diamond drills. In the case of columns built of carborundum machine. up of drums—whether the drums are mono• Balusters are often turned in small lathes, lithic or themselves built up of segments— fitted with a battery of wheels shaped so as the complete column should be assembled in to fit the entire longitudinal profile of the the shop and the fitttng of its parts com• baluster, at one time. If any part of the cut pleted by skilled mechanics. Then the in such a case is very deep, it may pay to cut pieces should be marked so that they will be into the baluster at this part, with thin assembled in exactly the same way at the wheels about an inch apart, so that much of building, otherwise there is sure to be trouble. the surplus material can be knocked off. Small inaccuracies are much less expensive This operation is carried out in the lathe— to correct at the shop than elsewhere.
[ 33 THROVGH THE AGES
Column bases can be turned, of course, which are standard and on the market), the the same as shafts or drums, or balusters. work may be made to move on the arc of Where a square plinth and a torus are in one a circle, of any desired radius. If mouldings are not too complex, they may thus be cut piece, turning the lower part of the torus, on curv^ed pieces as well as straight. where it joins the plinth, is something of a Exterior returns, i.e., moldings returned nuisance. It is better, usually, to make across the end of a piece, may be cut in a them separate and then dowel them to• carborundum machine if the pieces are gether. short enough to be braced standing end up As already stated, any surface that can and still pass under the ordinary wheels. be turned can also be gritted and polished Otherwise, they may be cut by wheels re• in the lathe by speeding up the latter and volving on a vertical axis, carried by an keeping the necessary gritting and polish• ing materials pressed against it—by hand. auxiliary head on the machine. I f the pieces If a plinth is monolithic with a torus, it are long, and if the machine is not specially must be completely finished by hand; equipped, these returns must be cut by whereas, if it is separate, in some cases at hand. Usually such returns are short, be• least, it can be finished like other plain work, cause the width of the pieces is not great. by machine. Gritting and polishing turned The labor cost on even the shortest of them work in a lathe is somewhat more expensive is at least equal to that on a lineal foot of than that done by gritting and polishing the straight mold, and if the length of the machines on plain work, but it is much less return approximates a foot, the cost is expensive than outright hand work. equal to that of from 2 to 3 lineal feet of the straight mold. MOULDINGS When a molding stops on itself, i.e., when Moldings are almost invariably cut on the molded piece ends with an interior re• carborundum machines of the planer type. turn, the mold can be cut by carborundum Normally, wheels revolving on horizontal up to the point where the wheel would be• axes (or "arbors") are cut to the desired gin to encroach on the return; the remainder profile, and the strips of stock are run under must be "dug out" by hand. The cost of them, molded face up; if any portion of a this operation is equal to the labor cost on moulding is "undercut," it must be done from 3 to 4 lineal feet of the straight mold. either by hand or else by a special wheel or While a more detailed discussion of costs wheels; this involves "getting ready" just is reserved for a later chapter, it may be the same as for a new molding, and resetting well to point out here that it costs as much the work in the machine, so that the under• to get ready to cut a few lineal feet of a cut may face the wheel. An undercut might given mold as for many feet. There is time be so located that there would be insuf• lost while finished work is being removed and ficient lateral clearance for a wheel, in new pieces are being put in the machine; or which case it must be done by hand. In any while a wheel is being moved from one piece case, an undercut member adds very greatly to another, where a number of similar to the cost of a molding. pieces can be "loaded" at the same time; By equipping a planer type of machine there is time lost in dressing the wheel, to with an auxiliary platen and certain simple keep it clean, and also to restore its profile but ingenious mechanical devices (all of as it begins to wear. All this time, as a rule,
34 THROVGH THE AGES the machine is devoted to the particular least one or more of the heaviest and most job, and its time efficiency, that is the per• elaborate and therefore most expensive centage of time actually cutting to the total machines on the market. These are best time, is relatively low. Probably from 50 adapted for heavy moldings and heavy to 100 lineal feet would be a high average fluted columns built up in segments of for the quantity of any particular molding drums. But no one shop can usually keep in an average job. Very rarely does the such a machine continuously employed on same molding occur in two different jobs, the type of work for which it is best adapted. and still more rarely would the same shop These heavy machines have auxiliary at• have both of these jobs and at the same time. tachments, enabling them to turn balusters If a given shop is to turn out any kind of horizontally and column bases vertically: work — heavy or light — it must have at and of course they can do light moldings as
Finishing a segment of a column drum in a carborundum machmc Special devices are employed to produce the entasis.
35 THROVGH THE AGES well as heavy ones. To keep them con• put through the machine in the order in stantly employed, they must sometimes be which they are to be set in place. This will used on work that could be done just as greatly diminish the amount of "fitting" well on lighter and cheaper machines. While required to insure a good job. they do such work, as a rule, more rapidly One who is familiar with the care and than the lighter machines, the charges for selection required to produce harmonious the use of capital are so much greater, that matching and blending of pieces through• the final cost is higher. out a job—especially when the marble is The above paragraphs indicate why richly colored and boldly marked—can well standardization in shop methods in this understand that if a piece gets broken at any business is, for the present at least, quite stage, it is better for all concerned to mend out of the question. It would require, to and patch it than to try to find another that begin with, that architects should stand• will be a satisfactory substitute for it. This ardize that portion of the interior finish is a source, at times, of bitter disputes, but upon which they expend their utmost ar• fortunately it does not occur very frequently. tistic efforts. If they did it, the results The lighter carborundum machines are of would be banal and monotonous. The sav• a great variety of patterns. Some of them ing in cost would be too dearly bought. So are like open side planers, some are specially it is likely that every interior marble job adapted for ripping slabs into narrow will always be what they all are now—a strips; some for cutting relatively narrow finish made to measure for the individual strips to length. Nearly all of them are building, just as a tailor-made suit is made more or less well adapted for more than one to order for an individual man and is never use because of the difficulty of keeping duplicated. them constantly employed on any one type After the carborundum work in a molding of work. is completed, the work has still to be gritted, CARVING honed and polished. With the narrow sur• Carving is nearly always done by hand. faces involved, most of them curved, this The only improvement is the introduction of work has to be done entirely by hand. The air tools in place of the old mallet and chisel. natural grits and hones are usually used in There are machines, of European make, this case. Of course, the work is relatively which will duplicate a carved model if it is expensive. not too complex nor too deeply undercut; Any elaborate job of cut and molded they will do a large part of the work, in any work should be put together in the shop and case. But they are not in general use, all inaccuracies corrected. The profile of a probably because the amount of work for given molding will change slightly from the which they are adapted and on which they inevitable wear on the carborundum wheels. effect a saving is not very large. This is noticeable only when an earlier and In any case, when the final fitting is a later piece have come together. Then the taken into account, along with the carving "membering" is inaccurate and must be and the hand work in molded members, in• corrected by hand. As far as possible, the terior marble is a material that still re• pieces of a continuous mold should be se• ceives its final touches from the hand of the lected, matched, and cut to length before skilled craftsman. the molding is cut. Then they should be May it always remain so!
36 THROVGH THE AGES
A LIST OF THE WORLD'S MARBLES
J- J- MCCLYMONT
Note—In a past issue. Mr. McClymont proposed, for the sake of convenience, to divide the different marbles into four groups. These arbitrary groupings were as follows:
GROUP A — Any marble or GROUP B — Any marble or GROUP C — Any marble or GROUP D—All marble, .stone stone sold to the trade in fair- stone sold to the trade in slabs stone that cannot be sold as and so-called serpentine mar• sized slabs or blocks of com• or blocks of fair or medium sound but contains a mini• bles, and Onyx, which, by mercial size, rectangular shape size, generally rectangular mum amount of natural de• their peculiar formation are and guaranteed by the seller shape, guaranteed to be sound fects, such as dry seams, old known to be fragile, such as to be sound, free from natural and free from natural defects, fractures, partially or com• Breccias and nearly all highly defects, that can be finished the finishing of which, be• pletely healed surface voids, colored marbles and .serpen• at a minimum cost, and sold cause of texture, the size of etc.. to be treated by the tines, and that are sold to the to the consumer as sound slabs, the shaf5e and size of manufacturer in the most ap• trade in irregular shaped marble. blocks, is somewhat more ex• proved manner, reinforced blocks or slabs without a pensive than those inGroup A. where necessary by liners on guarantee as to their sound• back or metal inlays and sold ness, treated by the manu• to the consumer as semi- facturer in the most approved sound marble. manner, reinforced where nec• essary by liners on back or metal inlays and sold to the consumer as unsound marble.
Marpessa—See Parian. Blackish-brown with pale yellow spiral- shaped fossils. (Blagrove.) Marquise or Marquese. One of the Napoleon marbles. Marvilla Marble or Maryland Marble and Quar-ied near Marquise or Marquese, Chalen Marble. close to Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. Brownish-gray or creamed coffee color Quarried at Cockeysville, Maryland. with veins which vary from white to Variegated bluish - gray and greenish- auburn. white. Another variety, called Pink Marquise, is pink with veins as above. And the third Marshall County Marble—See Iowa. variety, known as Marquise Fleurie, is a pinkish-purple with veins. (Blagrove.) Martyrs StoneSee Pietra Nepritica.
Marquise Fleuri—See Marquise. Manual Quarried near Marwal, Lot, France. Marseilles Quarries The quarries at Cassis (see Marbre de Reddish. (Blagrove.) Cassis) are about ten miles from Mar• Marxgrun Quarries seilles, and the production is sometimes known as Marseilles marble. See Bavarian Green, Red and Rose.
Marston {Madrepore) Maryland Black—See Antwerp Black. Quarried at Marston, Somersetshire, Eng• land. Maryland Green—See Cardiff Green.
37 THROVGH THE AGES IIMJ^
Maryland Marbles Mauve Jade—See Burmese Mauve Jade. 7'he Beaver Dam Quarry at Cockeysville, Baltimore County, and the Cardiff Quarry Mayenne Marbles—See Gris Bois Jourdon, at Cardiff, Harford County, were the Gris Louverne and Rose-de-la-Peliviere. only quarries operated in 1921. (U.S. Geological Survey, 1921.) Mayumiyama—See Black and White (Ja• pan). Maryland Serpenline—See Cardiff Green. A/az;ano—See Botticino. Massa Mazy Quarries—See Noir Beige. A small town situated among the hills about four miles from Carrara, near which are many Italian quarries. McMullen Gray—Group A. Quarried near Knoxville, Tennessee. Decided gray with occasional light veins Massachusetts Marbles and crow feet. Available in slabs only. .•\ccording to U.S. Geological Survey Stone. 1921, the Lee Quarries at Lee, Meadow Gray Berkshire County, and the Westfield Quarries at Westfield, Hampden County, See Tennessee Gray. were the only quarries producing building Quarry located at Knoxville, Tennessee. marble in 1921. Slightly mottled gray. Not being produced.
Matapan Cape—See Rosso Antico. Medium Cippolino or Medium Cippolin — See Cippolino, American. Matifoux Near Matifoux, Algiers, Africa. .Medjera Valley Quarries—SQQ Numidian. Gray varying to yellowish or bluish shades. (Blagrove.) Medno-Rudiansk Mines—See Russian Mal• achite. Matrix The general mass of a rock which has Medoux Gris (Breche) isolated crystals or mineral particles, Medoux Quarries, near Bagneres-de-Big- sometimes called the ground mass. orre, Hautes-Pyrenees, France. Yellowish-gray with fragments of black Mauretania and occasionally one of white, gray, Numidian marbles from Algeria are on yellow or brown. Montagne Grise in Algeria in what was the Ancient Province of iMauretania, .Medoux Quarries See Breche Medoux and which included what is now known as Medoux Gris. Algeria, Morocco and Tunis, Africa. Melana or Ink Marble Maurin Quarries—See Vert Maurin. Name applied to Pentelic Blue.
38 THRQVGH THE AGESliP:^
Melene Marble is quarried. Local name for the dark variety of Rose See Agrillei Calderano and Torrevarata. des Alps. Metamor{:)hism Mclleo—See Giallo Antico Melleo. The process, partly physical, partly chem• ical, by which a rock is altered in the Melleo Alabastro -Same as Alabastro Mel• molecular structure of its constituent leo. minerals and frequently in the arrange• ment of its particles. If the cause of the Melleo Cupo Alabastro—SaLme as Alabastro process is a general crystal movement, the Melleo Cupo. metamorphism is said to be regional or dynamic, but if its cause is mainly the contact with a molten intrusive rock it is Melleo Fiorito Alabastro—SarriQ as Alabas• called "contact metamorphism." (Ver• tro fvlelleo F-'iorito. mont Geological Survey.)
Melleo Listato Alabastro -Same as Alabas- Metamorphosed tro Melleo Listato. A rock whose original form, shape or character has changed. Melleo Nuvolato Alabastro—Same as Ala• bastro Melleo Nuvolato. Metilin—See Marmor Lesbium.
Melleo Rossiccio Alabastro—Same as Ala• Mexican Onyx bastro Melleo Rossiccio. Quarried in various localities. The prin• cipal source for a great number of years Melos- See Bigio Morato and Lucullan. has been the region southeast of Pueblo between Tecali, Tzicatacoya and Tep- Merbes-le-Chateau Marbles ene, and perhaps for that reason this Quarried in the neighborhood of Merbes- Onyx is often mentioned as being quarried le-Chateau, Hainaut, Belgium. at or near some one of the four places Dark red with white veins. (Blagrove.) mentioned. .'\11 of these marbles are generally known as Mexican Onyx, but are here listed Mergozza under name of quarry. See .\ntiqua Quarried near Mergozza, Italy. Salines, La Mesa, La Pedrara, La So- White with gray veins. (Blagrove.) presa and .Magdaline. All of the above excepting La Pedrara are Merlin Park Quarries—See Galway Black. producing. Among the old quarries no longer produc• Messina or Messina Straits ing are Agua Esconda, Desamparo, El Province of Calabria bordering on the Mogote Lajas, La Paoma, La Re forma, Straits of Messina. Tecoluco and Tepeyac.
39 THROVGH THE AGES
Mezzotint—See Georgia marbles—Group A. Miemo Marble Quarried at Tate, Pickens County, Geor- Alabaster quarried at Miemo, Tuscany, gia. Italy, is sometimes called "Miemo Mar- White mottled with blackish markings. ble."
Michigan Marble or Serpentine, or Michi• Miery (Lumachelle) gan Verde Antique. Quarried in the locality of Miery, near Quarry located at Ishpeming, Michigan. Poligny, Doubs, France. Not producing. Black with white fossils. (Blagrove.) Light green variegated. Migliarolo or Migliarolo Rosso Middlebury Cream Antique Quarried near Lake Maggiore, Italy. Quarried at Brandon, Vermont. This is a granite mottled red, gray, black, Creamish-white, slightly variegated. and white. Not available. Migliarolo Bianco M iddlebury Pavonazzo or Cream Pavonazzo From same locality is also a granite of —Group C. white with black spots. (Blagrove.) Quarried at Brandon, Vermont. Creamish-white background with purple Milford markings. From the Milford Quarry, near Milford, Not available. Connecticut. .According to Professor C. U. Shepard, the M iddleton above quarry was opened shortly after Middleton Quarries, near Queenstown, i8i I and operated for a number of years Cork County, Ireland. and then abandoned. Pink and gray with red and white veins. This same anthority describes the Mil• (Watson.) ford marble as green and also mentions Brownish-red with spots and veins of Verde .Antique from the same quarry. white and whitish-red. (Blagrove.)
Milford Sound Middleton Quarries (Ireland)—See Cork On the west coast of South Island, New Red. Other marbles from this quarry in Cork County, Ireland, are pink, dove and Zealand. sunset. Marble occurs in great abundance. The only quarry in New Zealand of which we Middleton Quarries (England)—See Hopton have a record is the one on Caswell Sound, Wood. an inner arm of Milford Sound. See Cas• well. Middleton Red Cork Red from the Middleton Quarries Milton is sometimes called Middleton Red. One of the Champlain quarries.
40 THROVGH THE AGES
M innesota Marbles and Stones Green with black and white veins. (Bla- See American Travertine, Kasota and grove.) Mankota Stone.
Mischi—Same as Pavonazzo. Italian.
Mischio —Mixed. Miseglia—See Parmazo.
Mischio Breccia Serravezza—Same as Brec• Missisquoi Quarries cia Violetto. At Phillipsburg, on the north shore of Lake Champlain, Province of Quebec, Canada. The following marbles are all quarried in Italy and most of them are named Missisquoi Dark Gray off Regal after the location of their quarries: Semitransparent light green containing opaque fossils. Mischio di Serra Valle Bluish-white mingled with gray, black A / iss isquo i Ernera Id and yellow. White, almost covered with bright green Mischio di Marmaroja veins. Clear light gray. Missisquoi Mottled Light gray composed of an aggregation of Mischio di Voilerra coarse calcite crystals and slight indica• Gray mingled with white and light red. tions of fossils. Mischio dei Conti M iss isquo i New Layer Pale gray with brown spots. Somwhat lighter, otherwise the same as Missisquoi Mottled. Mischio di Mitigliano Pale red mixed with yellow. Missisquoi Regal White with a few slender light green Mischio Quarried in Brescia veins. Pink mingled with white. Missisquoi Regina Mischio di Siena {Tuscany) White with light clouded green veins. Flesh colored mingled with white. Missisquoi Rex Mischio di Frosini White with slender light green veins. Quarried near the Abbey of St. Galgano. Reddish with white spots. Missisquoi Sea Green White with closely set green veins, the Mischio Verde or Verde Mischio color of which gradually diffuses with the Quarried near Padua. white.
41 THROVGH THE AGES
Alissisquoi Vert Rose .\/c.)/ma Light green containing numerous white Quarried near Molina, Spain. and rose colored patches. Yellow and white.
Missouri Marbles—See Carthage marbles. Molina Rosa Napoleon marbles, and St. Genevieve. Garfagnana Quarries. Tuscany, Italy. Pink and white with winding veins of Missouri Onyx dark reddish brown. This material is no longer available. Mollinges—See Jaune Lamartine. Mitigliano (Breccia) Quarried near Mitigliano, Tuscany, Italy. Molochites Yellow and gray with white and gray Same as Malachite. f ragments. Mona Marble For another marble quarried in this lo• cality see Mischio di Mitigliano. (Bla• Local name for Anglesey Serpentine. grove.) Monastery Pentelic MitoQuarries—See Black and White (Japan). Same as Pentelic White Statuary.
M iyask Moneyash Marbles -Amazonite or Amazon Stone was formerly Quarried at Moneyash, Derbyshire, Eng• almost exclusively obtained from near Mi- land. yask on the Ilmen Mountains, in the Two kinds are quarried at this place. One southern part of the Ural Range, Russia. is light mottled gray; the other is light mottled bluish gray. Neither is now being Mizzeh Alhdar produced. Ibn-son-abed Quarries, near Jerusalem. Delicate light primrose color, slightly Monks Park Stone—Group A. mottled, with a few light pink patches. Corsham Down Stone f rom another quarry Takes low polish. in the same locality. Quarried near Bath, Somersetshire, England. Mizzeh Yahdar Pale light brown or gray buff. Ta-la-bi-eli Quarries, near Jerusalem. Pink to cream with occasional rose-pink Mons—See Petit Granite. veins. Mons Claudianus Quarry Moate—See Irish Gray. Located east by north of the ruins of Thebes in the mountains near theRed Sea. Mola See Claudian Stone. Mola Quarries, Alicante, Spain. Light pink with white veins and a few Mons Porphyriles thread-like markings of deep red. (Wat• Name of one of the Ancient Egyptian son) Porphyrites.
4^] THRQVGH THE AGESiS
The Firemen's Memorial, of Knoxville Marble, Riverside Drive, New York City. Duty and Courage are here represented by heroic figures, symbolic in both action and atmosphere. H. Van Buren Magonigle, Architect : Attilio Piccirilli, Sculptor.
43 !^^lTHROVGH THE AGES
The Officers and Directors of the
LAUTZ MARBLE CORPORATION announce a change in name to
ROBERT K. GLASS &. COMPANY, INC. without change in personnel and trust to have a continuance of your valued friendship and patronage
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