Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/857

Rh M E E M E E and forged signatures of the more popular De Hooch, Metzu, Terborch, and even of Rembrandt. The honour of first recalling the attention of the art-world to this most original painter belongs undoubtedly to Thore, an exiled Frenchman, who described his then known works in his Musses de la Hollande (1858-60), published under the assumed name of W. Burger. The result of his researches, continued in his Galerie Suermondt and Galerie d Aren- berg, was afterwards given by him in a charming, though incomplete^ monograph (Gazette des eaux-Arts, 1866, pp. 297, 458, 542). The task has since bsen prosecuted with success by Havard (Le$ Artistes Uollandais], and by Obreen (Nederlandsclie Kiuistgeschiedcnis, Dl. iv.), and we are now in a position to refer to Van der Meer s works. His pictures are rarely dated, but, luckily for us, cue of the most important bears the date 1G56, and thus gives us a key to his styles. The picture referred to is the only one that has figures of life size. It is the Woman and Soldier, with other two figures, of the Dresden gallery, and is painted with remarkable power and boldness great command over the resources of colour, and with wonderful expression of life. For strength and colom it more than holds its own beside the neighbouring Rembrandts. To this early period of his career belong from internal evidence, the Reading Girl of the same gallery, the luminous and masterly view of Delft in the museum of the Hague, La Laitiere and the small street view, both in the collection of M. Six van Hillegom at Amsterdam, Le Soldat et la Fillette qui Rit of M. Double, the Country House in the gallery at Berlin, and others. In all these we find the same brilliant style and vigorous work, a solid impasto and a crisp spark ling touch. His first manner seems to have been influenced by the pleiad of painters circling round Rembrandt, a school which we know lost favour in Holland in the last quarter of the century. During the last ten or twelve years of his life Van der Meer adopted a second manner. We now find his painting smooth and thin, and his colours paler and softer. Instead of masculine vigour we have refined delicacy and subtlety, but in both styles beauty of tone and perfect harmony are conspicuous. Through all his work may be traced his love of lemon-yellow and of blue of all shades. Of his second style typical examples are to be seen in La Coquette of the Brunswick gallery, in the Woman Reading in the Van der Hoop collection at the Hague, in the Lady at a Casement belonging to Lord Powerscourt (exhibited at Burlington House, 1878), and in the Music Master and Pupil belonging to the Queen (exhibited at Burlington House, 1876). Van der Meer s works are extremely rare. There is but one in the Louvre, the Lace Maker; Dresden has the two above-men tioned, while Berlin has three, all acquired in the Suermondt collec tion, and the Czernin gallery of Vienna is fortunate in possessing a fine picture, believed to represent the artist in his studio. In the Aronberg gallery at Brussels there is a remarkable head of a girl, half the size of life, which seems to be intermediate between his two styles. Several of his paintings are to be found in private foreign collections. In all his work there is a singular completeness and charm. In rendering momentary expression he is a master, and his pictures attract by the perfect delineation of character as well as by the technical skill of the painter. His tone is usually silvery with pearly shadows, and the lighting of his interiors is equal and natural. In all cases his figures seem to move in light and air, and in this respect he resembles greatlyhis fellow-worker De Hooch, who entered the guild of St Luke only two years later than Van der Meer. It is curious to read that, at one of the auctions in Amster dam about the middle of last century, a De Hooch is praised as being &quot; nearly equal to the famous Van der Meer of Delft.&quot; So nearly are they allied that the best judges are divided in opinion whether the Dutch Family (&quot;La Promenade&quot;) of the academy of Vienna should be attributed to our painter or to De Hooch. Doubtless many of Van der Meer s works have yet to be restored to their proper author; but, as he is now in vogue, much care will 825 tho have to be used in judging. This is specially true in regard to the landscapes and still life &quot; subjects which are attributed to him The task is made more difficult by the diversity of style ,f th is Protean painter,&quot; as he is called by 1),- WWen or as ii names him, &quot; the Sphinx of Delft.&quot; ( j. J. y_f MEERANE, a rapidly increasing industrial town in south-eastern Saxony, lies in the district of Zwickau about 37 miles to the south of Leipsic. It contains an old church, a Realschule,&quot; and a technical school for weavers Hie leading industry is the weaving of woollen and half- woollen cloth, employing 3000 power-looms and 15 000 hand-looms, and producing goods of the annual value of upwards of 200,000. A large proportion of the cloth is exported to America and Japan. Meerane also possesses several important dye-works, besides smaller industrial establishments of various kinds. The population in 1S80 was 22,293. MEERSCHAUM. This German name is applied to a certain mineral, in consequence of its lightness, softness, and white colour, which suggest a resemblance to &quot;sea foam.&quot; In like manner it is called in French cmme de mer. By tlie German mineralogist Glocker it was termed sepiotite, in allusion to its resemblance to the so-called bone of the sepia or cuttle-fish. Possibly the fact that pieces of meerschaum, washed out of their matrix, are occasionally found floating on the Black Sea, may have led to the association of the mineral with marine products. Meer schaum is an opaque earthy mineral, of white, greyish, or yellowish colour, compact in texture, and breaking with a conchoidal or fine earthy fracture ; it adheres to the tongue, and is so soft as to be scratched by the nail, its degree of hardness being about 2 or 2 5. Its specific gravity varies from 9S8 to 1 279 ; hence it floats in sea-water until saturated. Meerschaum is a hydrated silicate of mag nesium, represented by the formula Mg 2 Si 3 O 8 + nH 2 6. The value of n, according to some analyses, is 2. Most of our meerschaum comes from Asia Minor, especially from the plains of Eski-shehr, where it occurs in nodular masses, of variable size and irregular shape, distributed through the alluvial deposits of the plain, which are systematically worked for its extraction by means of pits and galleries. The mineral is associated with magnesite, or carbonate of magnesium, and has probably been derived from the neigh bouring mountains, where a similar carbonate is found in connexion with serpentine. Meerschaum is found also, though less abundantly, in Greece and in some of the Grecian islands ; at Hrubschitz in Moravia, where it occurs in a serpentinous matrix ; and in Morocco, where it is used, when soft and fresh, as a substitute for soap; while a coarse variety is found at Vallecas near Madrid, and is employed as a building stone. Meerschaum also occurs in South Carolina. By far the greatest quantity of meerschaum is used in the manu- actnrc of tobacco-pipes, a purpose for which it is well fitted r by its porosity. The nodular masses ure first roughly scraped in order to- emove the red earthy matrix ; they are then dried, scraped again, and finally polished with wax. In this state the rudely-ahapeu nodular pieces are sent from the East principally to Vienna and to. various parts of Germany. The pipe-bowls, after having been tunml and carved, are rubbed with glass-paper and Dutch rushes ; they are next boiled in wnx, spermaceti, or stcarine, and afterwards sub- ected to careful polishing with bone-ash, chalk, &c. An imitation of meerschaum for common pipes is made of hard- ned plaster of Paris, treated with paraffin, and coloured by gam- &amp;gt;oge and dragon s blood. A peculiar preparation, into which &amp;gt;otato largely enters, is said to have been successfully employed in ^rance as a substitute for meerschaum. MEERUT, or MIRATH, a district in the division 1 of 1 The division lies between 27&quot; 38 and 30* 57 N. lat., and between- 7* 7 and 78 42 E. long., and comprises the six districts of Dehra_ Jun, Saharanpur, Muzafl arnagar, Meerut, Buland.shahr, and AH#arh. he area in 1878 was 11,138 square miles, and the population in 1872 ,977,173. XV. 104