grateful

[Peter Jiong]

[FONT=&quot]She looked at her ears—small, and pink like a shell; they made one feel that no materials were so grateful to the artist’s hands as the materials which make up the body of man.

From Mrs. Craddock by W Somerset Maugham (1902)

[/FONT]What does the underlined sentence mean?
[FONT=&quot][/FONT]

 

[Tarheel]

Although it doesn't make sense to me, it seems to be saying that there is no better material for artists to work with than the human body.
:-?

 

[Peter Jiong]

Does “grateful” mean “pleasing” here?

 

[GoesStation]

Does “grateful” mean “pleasing” here?

It looks like that's what Maugham intended. His writing in many of the extracts you've posted is impenetrable even to native speakers. Reading it looks like an exercise in masochism.