the clay rapidly absorbed
the coloring matter, and the outline was required to be bold and
continuous, each time that it was joined detracting from its merit. A
finely-ground slip was next laid upon a brush, and the figures and
ornaments were painted in. The whole was then covered with a very fine
siliceous glaze, probably formed of soda and well-levigated sand. The
vase was next sent to the furnace, and carefully baked. It was then
returned to the workshop, where a workman or painter scratched in all
the details with a pointed tool. The faces of female figures were
colored white, with a thick coat of lime or chalk, and the eyes red.
Parts of the drapery, the crests of helmets, and the _antyges_, or
borders of shields, were colored with a crimson coat, consisting of an
oxide of iron and lime, like a body color.

In the second style of vases the figures are painted in a dark brown
or black, of an unequal tone, on yellow ground, formed of a siliceous
coating over the pale red clay of the vase. An improvement upon this
style was the changing of the color of the figures by painting, or
stopping out, all the ground of the vase in black, thus leaving the
figures of the natural red of the clay, and the marking of the muscles
and finer portions, as an outline, of bright brown. After the paint
had dried, the slip, or the siliceous glaze, was laid over the vase,
except the under part of the foot and the inside. The colors used were
few and simple, and were evidently ground excessively fine, and made
into a kind of slip. Of these colors the black was the most important
and the most extensively used. Great difference has always existed as
to the nature of this color. Vauquelin takes it to be a carbonaceous
matter, such as plumbagine or black lead. The Duc de Luynes asserts it
to be an oxide of iron. Of opaque colors, the most important and
extensively used is the white, said by Brongniart to be a carbonate of
lime or fine clay. Red and yellow are sparingly used. Blue and green
are rarely found, and only on vases of the latest styles. The liquid
employed for mixing the colors is supposed to have been water.

The glaze with which these vases were covered is described by M.
Brongniart as lustrous (_lustre_), and only one kind was used, the
recipe for making which is now lost. It appears to have been composed
of one of the principal alkalies, either potash or soda. The vases of
Nola and Vulci are remarkable for the beauty and brillian