for about ten years after Billingsley's death. They were acquainted, and Randall got possession of Billingsley's recipe and supplied the London market with the ware unmarked. The writer in The Gentleman's Magazine states that a well-known dealer in the Strand told him that 'The old quaker (Randall) stands first. . . . but he will not put the French mark on his ware, or I could sell any quantity at the tip-top price old Sèvres china sells for.' This shows the high estimation in which this glassy paste was held at that time. Of course the decoration would form another and a higher recommendation if well done. Randall could paint well, but Billingsley better. And the memorial quoted above indicates that the Nantgarw artist-potters were quite willing to stake their enterprise on proof that they could produce as good a ware and as fine a decoration as the Frenchmen of Paris or its neighbourhood. Because they were crippled for capital they could not launch into much expense and bring out the Rose du Barri and Bleu de Roi ground colours of the Sèvres porcelain. In that particular they were behind the French, and in that only, so far as the taste of the period was concerned.

A large quantity of Billingsley's paste made at Swansea was undoubtedly marked with the Nantgarw stamp. A letter from Mr. Dillwyn proves it; but there were plenty of pieces of the best body produced and marked 'Swansea' over the glaze in red, puce, black, gold, blue, and brown; some in Roman letters and some in script or italic. Others, again, were impressed in the body with that name. Forgeries were abundant so far back as 1817, as appears by a letter from Dillwyn. A curious forged mark was this: SWUNSEA, burnt into the glaze upon an imitation plate by means of acid; several of that class of 'fakes' have turned up. Mr. Dillwyn later on attempted to improve Billingsley's recipe; this he did by improving it off the face of the earth,'

as the Yankees say. He imported more Cornish kaolin into the body and thus made it harder or, as he said, of a more 'compact fracture'; that is, more conchoidal, in contradistinction to the sacharrhoidal or granulated texture of the Nantgarw paste. The new body, which was produced about 1817, is what is called the duck-egg' variety of Swansea; it has, in many cases, a greenish hue by transmitted light, and some pieces came out yellowish or smoky. There is a tea-set of about forty pieces in existence, and all save one are of the finest texture, apparently equal to the best; but the fortieth is the black sheep of the flock, being quite discoloured as if with smoke. As the duck-egg period of manufacture was short, there could not have been much of it made. It was marked with a trident, in addition to Swansea' on the glaze, to distinguish it.

After the Swansea factory discontinued the manufacture of porcelain in 1824, two or three of the artists remained at that town. They imported other porcelain, and sold it in order to get a living for themselves. Two of them, at least, had' muffles' or enamel kilns. They obtained the ware ‘in the white' from various places, mostly Staffordshire, in a glazed form; they decorated it and hardened' the paint in the enamel kiln. These two men were William Pollard and Henry Morris. No doubt thousands of such pieces were decorated by them. It was not passed off as 'Swansea,' nor marked as such; but, doubtless, few people who bought it at Swansea asked as to its origin. Having been bought at Swansea from men who painted it at Swansea, 'Swansea' it remains to them or to their descendants to this day.

Collectors, therefore, have to be very careful as to the marks, paste, history, decoration, and especially the mannerism of the locally employed artists, if they wish to have porcelain which was made and painted at Nantgarw or Swansea.

PORTRAIT OF BALDWIN DE LANNOY BY JOHN VAN EYCK

N the early part of 1900 the fine portrait reproduced on page 409 was submitted to me for my opinion after it had been offered to the National Gallery as a work of Leonardo da Vinci. I at once recognized it as the portrait of a nobleman who was both a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece and a chamberlain of the duke of Burgundy, and as being undoubtedly painted by the master-hand of John van Eyck about 1435. The picture was subsequently purchased by Messrs. Colnaghi & Co., who allowed me to reproduce it in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts (August 1900). I had an idea that among the drawings in the remarkable collection of portraits in the town library of Arras (MS. 266) there might possibly be one of this knight, but as I was at the time unable to leave London I could not ascertain whether this conjecture was well founded. Looking through the list of knights of the Golden Fleece who held the office of chamberlain I came to the conclusion that the person portrayed was John, lord of Roubaix and Herzelles, who was at the head of the embassy sent by the duke in 1428 to the Portuguese court to ask for the hand of the Infanta Isabella. In the Chronique des Arts (November 10, 1900) M. L. Dimier pointed out that I was mistaken, and that the Arras manuscript contained a drawing' after this portrait with the name of the knight it representsBaldwin de Lannoy, lord of Molembais, surnamed 'the stammerer,' a member of one of the most illustrious families of Hainault. This Baldwin was the third son of Gilbert, lord of Santes and Beaumont, and Katherine de Saint Aubin, lady of Molembais, Heri, and Saint Aubin. Born in 1386 or 1387, he was made governor of Lille in 1423; in 1428 he was sent with the lord of Roubaix to Portugal, accompanied by John van Eyck, who was commissioned to paint the Princess Isabella's portrait. On the institution of the Order of the Golden Fleece, January 10, 1430, the lord of Roubaix and his three brothers-in-law, Hugh, Gilbert, and Baldwin, were among the twenty-five knights then created. Baldwin married (1) Mary de Clermont, who died May 31, 1433; and (2) Adrianna de Berlaymont, lady of Solre-le-château, who died April 29, 1439. Baldwin died in 1474, and was buried before the high altar in the church His first wife had no offof Solre-le-château. spring, the second bore him four children: Baldwin, Philippa, Anne, and Hugh. Of these, the youngest became a canon of Liége. brother Baldwin married and had one son, Philip, by the death of whose only child in 1567 this branch of the family became extinct. The por1 Reproduced on p. 409.

His elder

trait under consideration may then have passed into the possession of his nearest relative, Horace de Lannoy, prince of Solmona and Ortonammare in the Abruzzi, the great-grandson of his father's elder brother, Hugh. As to this we have no evidence, but be it as it may the portrait was certainly in Italy in the seventeenth century, and in the possession of a Spanish-speaking family who attributed it to Mantegna, whose name is written on the back in the Spanish form 'Andrea Manteña.' It came later on into the hands of the Marquis Coccapane of Modena, and now adorns the Berlin gallery.

The portrait is painted on an oak panel, 26 centimeters by 19, the back of which has been, as was John van Eyck's custom, painted to imitate stone. The figure is less than half the size of life, the face seen in two-thirds profile in full light turned to the right and looking straight out, not at the spectator. The knight wears a robe of violet-purple damask with yellowish-green sprays of foliage, trimmed at the neck and wrists with reddish-brown fur, and a close-fitting tunic with a collar open in front displaying a little fine white linen. He has a felt hat of the same peculiar shape as that worn by John Arnolfini in the National Gallery picture, and holds with both hands a white wand, the symbol of his official position in the duke's household. A ring adorns the little finger of his right hand; around his shoulders hangs the enamelled gold collar of the Golden Fleece; these collars, the work of the Bruges goldsmith John Peutin, were delivered to the knights on Saint Andrew's day 1431. It is therefore certain that the portrait was painted after that date; probably not later than 1436, though the age of the knight appears to be that of a man nearer sixty than fifty, but Baldwin had knocked about the world a great deal and been in many a fight, besides holding offices of responsibility. The execution is as fine as that of any other of John van Eyck's portraits; the hands, admirably foreshortened, even finer. The colour, of a deep tone, is excellent, and the lighting most skilful.