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CHAPTER XII.-PLATES 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 53*, 54, 54*, 55.
INDIAN ORNAMENT,
FROM THE EXHIBITIONS OF 1851 AND 1855.
PLATE XLIX.
Ornaments from Works in Metal, exhibited in the Indian Collection in 1851.
PLATES L., LI., LII.
Ornaments from Embroidered and Woven Fabrics, and paintings on Vases, exhibited
in the Indian Collection in 1851, and now
at South Kensington Museum.
PLATES LIII., LIII*., LIV., LIV*.
Specimens of Painted Lacquer-work, from the Collection at the India House.
PLATE LV.
Ornaments from Woven and Embroidered Fabrics and Painted Boxes, exhibited
in the Indian Collection at Paris in 1855.
THE Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations in 1851 was barely
opened to the public
ere attention was directed to the gorgeous contributions of India.
Amid the general disorder everywhere apparent in the application of Art to
manufactures, the
presence of so much unity of design, so much skill and judgment in its application,
with so much of
elegance and refinement in the execution as was observable in all the works,
not only of India, but
of all the other Mohammedan contributing countries,-Tunis, Egypt, and Turkey,-excited
a degree
of attention from artists, manufacturers, and the public, which has not been
without its fruits.
Whilst in the works contributed by the various nations of Europe there was
everywhere to be
observed an entire absence of any common principle in the application of
Art to manufactures,-whilst
from one end to the other of the vast structure there could be found but
a fruitless struggle after
novelty, irrespective of fitness, that all design was based upon a system
of copying and misapplying
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