Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/64

Rh commissioned to execute for a dinner service or a chapel? It maybe admirable painting—if you give a very high price—but it will still be only manufacture."

"Then what pleasant lives those pottery painters of the early days must have led! They were never long stationary. They wandered about decorating at their fancy, now here and now there; now a vase for a pharmacy, and now a stove for a king. You find German names on Italian ware, and Italian names on Flemish grès; the Nuremberger would work in Venice, the Dutchman would work in Rouen."

"Sometimes however they were accused of sorcery; the great potter, Hans Kraut, you remember, was feared by his townsmen as possessed by the devil, and was buried ignominiously outside the gates, in his nook of the Black Forest. But on the whole they were happy, no doubt: men of simple habits and of worthy lives."

"You care for art yourself, M. Della Rocca?"

There came a gleam of interest in her handsome, languid hazel eyes, as she turned them upon him.