Methods and Materials
The methods of painting heraldry have changed very little from those
that were employed in the early MSS. In the unfinished Bible at
Winchester Cathedral, of which the illuminations are in every stage of
progress from the sketch to the finished work, the sequence is clearly
shown. First, the design lightly sketched in with fine charcoal or a
leaden stylus, then carefully gone over with a black line. The gold
masses put in and burnished and then the colour. Shading and correction
of the outline followed, and finally the high lights put a finish to
the work.
Vellum, a fine parchment made of calf skin, is the most suitable
surface for heraldic painting in water-colour, although paper,
which includes various “boards,” is useful for students’ work and
for preliminary drawings. The colours bear up, and gold acquires an
appearance of solidity on vellum which cannot be obtained on paper.
No doubt the surface is somewhat difficult to deal with at first and
painting on it has a technique of its own, but there is nothing that
cannot be overcome if it is approached in a practical way. The colour
of vellum varies from a yellowish white to darkish ivory colour, a
variety that is due to the natural colour of the skin. It can also be
obtained in positive colours, the kind that is used in book-binding. It
is somewhat thickly coated on one side with a chalky preparation, and
if this side, the front, is used it requires delicate handling, for it
is easily injured by the scraping that may be necessary for erasure,
so that a rough spot of skin appears through the preparation and the
surface can only be restored with great difficulty. Unless, therefore,
it is necessary to use both sides as for a leaf of a book, the back of
the skin will be found preferable. It is a little darker in tone and
not quite so smooth, is tolerably hard and bears erasure well, but the
knife requires deft handling, and then small corrections can be made
with it successfully, for colours do not penetrate vellum very far,
though when properly prepared they adhere to the surface with ample
tenacity. It will be found very desirable to keep vellum clean rather
than to trust to subsequent cleaning.
As it is difficult to properly remove pencil marks except with the
knife, the design should first be made as fully as necessary on paper
or other surface, and transferred to the vellum by tracing or rubbing
down or by pouncing. The best way of transferring a design is to go
carefully over the back of a tracing of it with a sharp pencil and
having carefully placed it in position on the vellum to rub it down
with a knife held slanting, a palette knife will do very well, and
in that way the lines are clearly transferred to the vellum without
the depression on the surface that a point is likely to make. Tracing
down the design with a style and coloured transfer paper is less
satisfactory owing to the blurring of the line, unless the point used
is very sharp and then it is likely to cut through. In making the
preliminary design the colour composition with regard to such parts
as are susceptible of free treatment (such as the mantling) should
be carefully noted so that nothing experimental need be tried on the
vellum. Unless both sides of the skin are to be used it is well to
strain the vellum over an ordinary frame by means of glue or with small
tacks at frequent intervals, first well damping it on the reverse side
to that which is to be used. A piece of cardboard should be placed
between the vellum and the frame to give support to the surface and
help to throw up the colour, care being taken, however, that the vellum
though damp is not actually wet or it will stick to the cardboard in
patches with disastrous effect. Having the design traced on the vellum
the next step is to lay in the gold. This is provided in shells or
cakes and is painted on very evenly with a sable brush and when dry is
burnished with an agate burnisher, or a tusk does very well.
Burnishing is facilitated by first gently passing the finger tip over
the gold, and a piece of card or other firm substance should be placed
behind the work during the whole process, or, when a high degree of
polish is desired, a piece of plate glass may take the place of the
card. But it must be remembered that over-burnishing deprives the gold
of its beautiful colour and tends to blackness.
The principal colours are then laid in their places and their quality
will depend of course on the taste and intention of the artist, but
in the absence of necessity for modification, the traditional strong
brilliance will probably be sought after and the colours will be
used in their fullest strength and purity. For red, Vermilion is
unapproachable in its place, has great body and is therefore easy to
use. For blue, Cobalt is very beautiful but is somewhat difficult
to lay from its want of opacity, a quality which is not improved by
the glycerine which is used in “moist” colours. French ultramarine
or French Blue (it is known under various names) forms when mixed
with white a fairly efficient substitute for cobalt and presents no
difficulties in laying.
Green. The most brilliant is of course Emerald Green, but as it is
extremely difficult to lay and easily works up it is much feared and
avoided. It is very useful in combination with greens of lower tone
mixed with white to lighten them. Green oxide of chromium (not chrome
green) is excellent in this way and possesses good body.
The white will be Chinese White, made from oxide of zinc, which does
not change colour as the lead whites do. The latter, however, are
extremely useful for temporary work, such as for design that is to
be carried out in other materials, when the drawing is no longer of
consequence after it has served its purpose.
The difficult colours Cobalt and Emerald Green can nevertheless be
laid satisfactorily by means of patient trial, the result depending
on that skill of manipulation which can only come by much practice
as well as on the exact degree of moisture with which the colours
are used. Indeed, it may be well to point out, especially for the
benefit of those who are familiar with water-colour sketching, how
comparatively dry all the colours are worked in illumination. Tints,
even, are best put on with a sparely filled brush in a manner that
approaches a scumble much more nearly than a wash. This will be found
most troublesome in tints that are painted on the vellum itself, as
in white mantling, for instance, or in objects that are “proper,” and
anything like a wash with a full brush being impossible, a certain
amount of stippling will probably become inevitable. The work is
certainly somewhat difficult, and too much disappointment, therefore,
should not be felt at the failure of first efforts. Shortly, the effort
should be directed to getting the colour on with as little moisture as
will suffice, so that the surface of the vellum may not become wet and
disturbed.
The principal masses of colour being in, such dividing or other strong
lines as occur will be drawn with black. A drawing pen will probably
be used for straight ones and in this also care must be taken that
the black, lamp black or ivory black, is not too diluted, or it will
probably spread, especially when in contact with colours that contain
glycerine or waxy constituents.
This done, the next stage of the work, if it is to have the elaboration
of the real illuminated MSS. rather than of the diagrammatic Rolls of
Arms, will be to model up the forms with shadow colour, using carmine
or crimson lake to shade vermilion with the addition of a little sepia
when stronger colour is required. Blue will be shaded with French blue
to the required tone, and green with darker green.
The lights may then be put in with light tones of their respective
colours. Gold is shaded with a low tone of yellow as a general shadow
colour and with umber, and is sometimes high lighted with Naples yellow
and white. In accessory decoration gold may be shaded with green and
finished with a darker tint of the same colour.
In the colour treatment of mantling the tone may well be kept low in
relation to that of the shield to which it will thus lead up and give
value.
Instead of lighting with tones of their own colour the parts in which
modelling is suggested, a very beautiful and decorative effect is
produced by the mediaeval practice of heightening the whole design with
gold in lines which coalesce into masses on the high lights and trail
off into the shadows where also they help to define the form in a very
effective way. This use of gold throughout the work serves at the same
time to harmonize and pull the whole thing together into unity. It is
a method which requires considerable skill of hand and clearness of
intention, for the lines must be drawn with firm certainty, but when
successful is most effectively beautiful.
In the treatment of the helmet its relative importance in the
composition must not be forgotten, nor its brilliancy in combination
with its central position be allowed to attract undue attention. The
broad shadow which its body takes in its forward tilted position is
very useful in keeping down the general tone, in colour work as well
as in black and white. Also it may be remembered that helmets were
themselves painted and their rivets gilt.
In painting on paper, where yellow is substituted for gold, Cadmium
will be found to be the most useful kind of that colour.
Until the invention of moist colour the pigments were obtained in
powder and mixed with gum water, a great deal of small knowledge being
required in order that the colours should not rub off the surface on
the one hand, or crack or otherwise misbehave on the other. Gold was
mixed in the same way, but if with too little gum it rubbed off and if
with too much it refused to burnish. Nevertheless, the colours when
so mixed have a certain advantage in having more body, and a better
because less waxy surface. However, the greater convenience of moist
colour is undoubted and in some of them the surface is very good.
So-named luminous body colour made by Newman of Soho Square has been
recently tried with very satisfactory results, the cobalt among the
“difficult colours” being particularly good.
The notable revival of Enamelling has restored to heraldry a very
beautiful means of expression, one which has proved from the twelfth
century downwards to be especially suitable to its subject, as well
from its broad simplicity of treatment as from its permanence and
beauty. In this connexion one’s thoughts inevitably turn to the
stall-plates of the Knights of that Most Noble Order of the Garter in
its Chapel in Windsor Castle, and one is led to hope that they may once
again be done in a way not unworthy of their splendid and monumental
predecessors of the old days.
Enamel entered to an enormous extent into the decorative metal work of
the Middle Ages. Altars, Church vessels, and crosiers, caskets, nefs
and other domestic objects, the girdles and clasps for ladies’ use, as
well as the details of military trappings were among the many things
that were adorned in this manner. The massive military belts that were
worn below the hips and were indicative of high rank were especially
rich in goldsmiths’ work and enamels, infinite pains and enormous sums
being spent on their execution.
[Illustration: FIG. 172.--Queen Eleanor’s Cloak Clasp. Champlevé
Enamel. Thirteenth century.]
Of the various methods of enamelling that which is known as Champlevé
is especially associated with Gothic art. Among the most interesting
of the personal ornaments is the cloak clasp of Queen Eleanor, wife of
the warrior King Edward I (Fig. 172). Here the arms of her husband,
England, with those of her own blood, Castile and Leon, unite to make
a unique fastening to the Royal mantle of that Queen “of Good Memory.”
This clasp was probably made at Limoges, where Champlevé enamel was
certainly produced as early as the latter half of the twelfth century
and probably earlier, the art having been imported, it is said, from
Venice, whither it had come from the East.
At this same time heraldry was coming into systematic form, and enamel
was soon employed to display it on the Royal and other monuments,
beginning perhaps with the memorial slab to Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count
of Anjou (father of Henry II), who died in 1151, which is now in the
Museum at Le Mans.
The succeeding centuries are increasingly rich in heraldic enamels,
the shields in the monuments of Edward III and his Queen, Philippa of
Hainault, and on the magnificent tomb of William de Valence, Earl of
Pembroke, in Westminster Abbey, may be taken as examples. The shield
on the latter monument is reproduced by Boutell and others and will
well repay study, especially when it is rendered in the colour which is
necessary to a full appreciation of its beauty (Fig. 174).
Towards the end of the mediaeval period began the Garter stall-plates
already alluded to as still to be seen on the panels of St. George’s
Chapel, which date from the early fifteenth century, though some of
them relate to personages of an earlier time.
These have most fortunately been brought within reach of study in the
valuable facsimile reproductions in the work by Mr. St. John Hope,
which includes in its scope the plates which were executed down to
nearly the end of the fifteenth century. As examples of heraldic
composition they are invaluable, for although the deterioration of the
Gothic was already begun, they possess to a remarkable extent those
decorative qualities that their modern successors so unfortunately
lack.
Enamel itself consists of a rather dense glass coloured with metallic
oxides, and must not be confused with the enamel colours which are
employed in painting on porcelain. The latter are vitrifiable but not
vitrified material; that is to say, in them the metallic colours in
powder are mixed with powdered glass, and the whole becomes fluxed
together when the work is fired in the kiln or muffle, while in true
enamel the glass and its colouring are intimately combined from
the first. By way of definition it may be said that enamel work is
therefore an arrangement of one or more layers of coloured glass on
fused metal.
In Champlevé work the design is first outlined on a metal plate,
usually copper, and then, by means of gravers and chisel-like tools
called scorpers, the space which is to receive the enamel is cut out
to the necessary depth, from ¹⁄₃₂ to ¹⁄₂₀ of an inch, the rather rough
surface that is left by the scorper serving as an additional key to
the enamel (see Fig. 173), which having been ground to a powder and
moistened with water, is then placed in the cavities prepared for it,
and, after being carefully dried, is put into a muffle raised to a
red heat, and thus fired until the enamel is fluxed. The work is then
allowed to cool, is smoothed and polished, and the metal parts may then
be gilt. Champlevé is usually executed in opaque enamel; that is, in
glass made opaque by an admixture of oxide of tin.
In very early specimens two or more colours are found in contact in one
space, but this is extremely difficult to do, and the resulting line
is a somewhat ragged one in European work, though wonderful effects
of opaque colours are produced by the Japanese. Since the thirteenth
century each colour, in Western work, fills its own space.
[Illustration: FIG. 173.--Plate prepared for Champlevé Enamel.]
The design, must, from the nature of the work, be kept very simple
without too much subtlety of line that might be lost in the cutting,
and the laying of the enamel will be facilitated if the angles of small
spaces are not made too pointed. The principal qualities of form will
consist in good distribution and well-balanced masses rather than in
expression of detail. The outlines of charges which are in colour
on metal, or vice versa, are formed by the edges of the sunk spaces
and such further definition that maybe required, such as the marking
of the junction of the further legs with a lion’s body, is effected
with a line of the ground colour laid in a groove cut for the purpose.
This perfectly natural method of drawing with the materials that are
immediately concerned has resulted in some singularly inept modern
examples of heraldry, where the limbs are deliberately represented as
detached from the bodies, as though there were something mysteriously
mediaeval in such an unreasoning travesty of a perfectly simple
expedient.
Where one colour approaches another, as in the de Valence shield
(Fig. 174), it will be necessary to leave a narrow rim of metal as an
outline, and where the work is sufficiently large other details of form
will be shown in a similar way. Diaper also may be thus drawn in lines
of metal among colour, as is shown here in the running ornament, or by
lines of colour in metal, as the case may be.
The gilt outlines of the de Valence Champlevé shield somewhat suggest
the effect of Cloisonné work, the way in which the Byzantine enamels
were executed; but this method has been little, if at all, employed
heraldically. In it the spaces to be filled are made of flat wires that
are bent to the requisite form and soldered into their places on a
metal plate, and the work then proceeds as in Champlevé.
[Illustration: FIG. 174.--Shield on Champlevé Enamel from the Monument
to William de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, in Westminster Abbey.]
In the fifteenth century, when Renaissance art was beginning to look at
things in a new way and was discovering new methods by which to express
itself, a new kind of enamel work took the place of the more formal
Champlevé, just as a freer kind of heraldry was about to supersede the
decadent Gothic. This became known in time as “Limoges Enamel,” though,
as we know, that place had been celebrated for enamel in another form
for hundreds of years. This painted enamel did not, however, take the
place of Champlevé on monuments, rather the use of enamel in that way
died out. Probably the painted plaques were too tender for the purpose,
and in any case the treatment would have had to be much modified to
bring them into harmony with monumental conditions. Although the
method was new the treatment of the subjects was largely that of the
missal paintings, and figure compositions, both sacred and secular,
were accompanied by decorative borders into which heraldry naturally
entered. Fig. 175 is an heraldic example of this method as it was
practised by the celebrated Nardon Penicaud.
[Illustration: FIG. 175.--Arms in Limoges Enamel. Part of a Triptych by
Nardon Penicaud.]
This kind of enamel is done on a smooth plaque of thin copper or other
metal which has been slightly domed for the purpose. It is covered with
a coat of enamel which forms the ground, the back also being enamelled
in order to equalize the contractile strains, and fired. The design is
then painted in white of suitable thicknesses, which on being fired
form tones with the ground colour according to their relative opacity,
and the result is called grisaille. This is a very charming form of
decoration in itself, and is frequently done with that intention.
Usually, however, coloured enamel is painted over it, the work being
carefully fired at each stage, a very anxious process, and finally it
may be heightened with gold after the manner of the illuminations. An
additional method of obtaining decorative effects, in diapers, etc.,
presents itself in the power of scratching the painted gold with a
needle before firing. Fig. 176, executed in this manner, is a plaque
that is the property of W. H. Weldon, Esq.
From the capacity of painted enamel to imitate the effects of the
illuminations it presents few technical difficulties as design. Its
practice, however, is another matter, as may be imagined when the risk
of the numerous firings is taken into account.
A form of enamel that is occasionally used for badges and similar
heraldic subjects is that which is called bassetaille. In this method
the subject, usually in the form of a medallion, is carved in low
relief and the transparent enamel fluxed completely over it, the
surface being afterwards ground and polished. The varying thickness of
the enamel, from the deepest part of the relief to the highest, gives a
quality of gradated colour that is extremely beautiful. In a badge or
jewel of this kind there is, of course, a rim raised to the height
necessary to contain the enamel and extending above the highest point
of the carved subject.
[Illustration: FIG. 176.--Enamelled Plaque. Crest of W. H. Weldon,
Esq., C.V.O., Norroy King of Arms. Geo. W. Eve.]
Still another method is that which came into use in the fifteenth
century for jewels, and is known as plique-a-jour, a kind of
transparent Cloisonné which is said to have been produced by Cellini,
who certainly knew of it. It is an extremely difficult process, but
the effect is remarkably precious and jewel-like, the enamel being
fired into a design which has been built up of bent wire and soldered
together like Cloisonné without the bedplate, so that the work looks
like a miniature piece of stained glass (as indeed it is) and of great
beauty. In a similar way a design may be cut out or saw pierced through
a plate of metal and filled with enamel _à jour_.
In all methods of enamelling, a drawing of the design must of necessity
be first made, and it is of course essential that the designer should
have a practical knowledge of the methods that are concerned, the
design and the finished work being necessarily interdependent, and
though written descriptions are useful to indicate the nature of the
processes nothing can supply the place of actual experiment under
competent instruction. Familiarity with the practical side of art
craftsmanship need not imply an intention to produce the work itself,
but is absolutely necessary to adequately designing for it.
Enamel is increasingly employed in commemorative tablets and in objects
of ceremonial use, and is also used with equally charming effect on
the decoration of cabinets, jewel caskets, and other boxes to which as
wedding gifts or other presentations, heraldry, properly marshalled
and well executed, is peculiarly appropriate. To such purposes the
“Limoges” painted method readily lends itself, especially when the
general design is of somewhat ornate character. With regard to the
mounting of enamels, metal as framework seems especially suitable to
their perfect display, as the setting to the gem, and so when a plaque
is used to decorate a wooden panel it is well to introduce metal as
an intermediary. But, nevertheless, I have found a well-cut ebony
frame very satisfactory in itself, and the matter is clearly one for
experiment.
Champlevé and Cloisonné go well with the more severe styles of design,
both ornamental and heraldic, in fact, enamel goes best with styles
similar to those with which it was associated in the early practice.
The one with the freedom of the Renaissance, the others with the
greater severity and strength of the Gothic.
For salvers, inkstands, lamps and other utensils heraldry in Champlevé
enamel is very suitable and it is somewhat remarkable that it is
not more often employed in place of the engraving which is usually
inappropriate because of its lack of decorative quality.
METAL.--Although heraldry in metal work has so wide a range, from the
massive bronze gate to the badge worked on a buckle, that it can only
be partially dealt with in a general work, it is desirable to touch
upon such parts of so large a subject as may help the student to find
in early work good examples for present application. The value of
the beautiful metal coffret, the jewel case of the Middle Ages, for
instance, to the designing of the modern box, whether it be intended
for a similar use or as the repository of a city’s thanks to a hero,
is obvious. Even the obsolete weapons of early times may be made useful
for their decoration, as admirable models for the making of trowels
and other ceremonial implements whose after character as souvenirs of
interesting occasions renders them suitable to, if indeed it does not
demand, heraldic or symbolic decoration.
Of the large work the stately bronze doors of Henry VII’s Chapel in
Westminster Abbey are among the most distinguished examples in their
perforated design of work whose duty is rather that of a gate than a
door. The panels are filled with badges in pierced work, the Beaufort
Portcullis, Henry’s favourite badge, the Falcon and Fetterlock of York,
the entwined roses of York and Lancaster, and the Royal Monogram, all
telling their story in terms of beautiful metal work. Within is the
monument with the effigies of the King and Queen recumbent on the tomb,
while at the foot amorini support a shield of arms and at the corners
are placed angels who once held crowns. Designed by Torregiano and
executed by him or under his direction, it is without doubt the most
splendid and complete heraldic metal work of its time and style in this
country. Over the gates in the grille which surrounds the tomb are the
Royal Arms, France and England quarterly with the dragon and greyhound
supporters. The latter was the badge of the Nevilles, but the former,
the Dragon of Cadwallader, was of especial value in the King’s eyes.
It denoted his descent from Llewellyn and King Arthur, and perhaps he
liked to feel that his greatness was not wholly dependent upon York
and Lancaster. It had been flown, on a flag of the Tudor colours,
argent and vert, on the field of Bosworth when the “White Boar” was
slain and his crown was plucked from the hawthorn bush into which it
had fallen and placed on the head of the victor. As badges, the dragon
and the greyhound are repeated on the upper part all round the grill
and in its parapet portcullises and roses alternate in the cuspings
of the tracery. One of these dragons is shown in Fig. 173. Even the
great candle sconces are Tudor roses placed horizontally, which support
crowns whose crosses and fleur-de-lis form a decorative rim. As
heraldic design the proportion of the parts, the vigour of the animals
and the excellence of the spacing (and this may be especially seen in
the supporters over the gates) leave nothing to be desired, while the
general arrangement of the repeated heraldic motives in a decorative
and yet reticent way is as admirable an example as can be found.
[Illustration: FIG. 177.--Dragon from the Grills in Henry VII’s Chapel,
Westminster Abbey. Sixteenth Century.]
[Illustration: FIG. 178.--Memorial Brass to Sir J. de Brewys, Wiston
Church, Sussex.]
Relief in metal work, cast or wrought, was very fully employed in
the Renaissance monuments in place of the flatter treatment which
preceded it. The mediaeval memorials more frequently employed the
flat decoration done in Champlevé enamel fixed into the spaces of
sculptured stone, or else the incised metal slab, somewhat similar in
its method of production, which is known as a Monumental Brass. These
are so comparatively numerous and of such admirable workmanship as to
form one of the most interesting and instructive means of studying most
that pertains to good heraldry. They were executed with great care,
and afford examples of almost every kind of application of arms and
badges to costume. Their wealth of heraldic lore is ably set forth in
the works of Creeny, Waller, and others, and a single illustration
must suffice here. Fig. 178 is the interesting brass to the memory of
Sir John de Brewys, which is in many respects typical. The figure of
the knight in his armour, his hands in an attitude of prayer, his head
resting on his great helm, which bears his crest, and his feet on a
couchant lion. Around him are shields of his arms six times repeated,
and between them on little scrolls the words “Jesus” and “Mercy” many
times occur.
The method of work is very similar to that of the Champlevé enamels,
allowing for the difference in scale, the lines being boldly incised
in the metal with chisel-like tools and then filled in with black or
colour much after the way of the niello and enamel of the smaller and
more precious work, a hard waxy composition being used as the colouring
material.
Among the smaller metal work of domestic use, the firedogs, firebacks,
hinges, locks and other parts of furniture, there is no lack of
examples. The slabs of cast iron that are known as firebacks were
very generally used as spaces for heraldry, the emphatic central
position which they shared with the chimney-piece making them similarly
appropriate. With the revival of dog-grates the accompanying fireback
has also returned to favour, and a study of old castings therefore
becomes additionally necessary. The Tudor examples are usually very
excellent and bold in design, as in that illustrated here (Fig. 179),
which displays the Royal Arms, probably of Henry VIII. In a form of
work which is to be subjected to the action of fire, and even to be
seen for the most part through lighted fuel, a design is obviously
fitting in proportion to the degree of elimination of unessential
detail that is effected, and in the case in point this has been most
efficiently done. The arms, and the lower part of the centre generally,
are much fireworn, but anything of this nature simpler and finer in
pose and modelling than are the supporters it would be difficult to
find, while the proportion and spacing of the whole composition leave
nothing to be desired. Fig. 180 is another well-designed Tudor example,
the arms being those of Queen Elizabeth, who sometimes used the
greyhound for a supporter as her father had done, instead of the dragon.
[Illustration: FIG. 179.--Armorial Fireback. English. Sixteenth
Century.]
[Illustration: FIG. 180.--Armorial Fireback. English. Sixteenth
Century.]
It must be remembered, in designing firebacks, that the work is
to be carried out by casting and should therefore be of suitable
character. Casting is necessary because every time that wrought iron
becomes red-hot and cools again it scales, and so loses a considerable
thickness of material in a comparatively short time, a disadvantage
that does not exist in the cast metal. The design in most cases is
treated panel-wise within a raised border, but in the later backs the
outline of the design, of the mantling and crest, sometimes formed the
edge of the fireback without a containing rim. A space at the bottom,
the part that was most embedded in the fire, is frequently left plain,
or simply fluted.
[Illustration: FIG. 181.--Mortar in Cast Bronze.]
Fig. 181 is also interesting as heraldry in cast metal, which in
this case is bronze; and an Italian example is found in the arms of
the Martelli, cast in bronze by Donatello (Fig. 182), which has much
spirit, but lacks the excellent distribution of the same creature on
the decorative shield for the Palazzo Guadagni now in the Museum at
South Kensington.
[Illustration: FIG. 182.--Arms of the Martelli, by Donatello.]
The elaborate hinges, clasps, and locks of doors and coffers that were
often enriched still further with coats of arms are also of great
interest and appear to have been made subjects of lavish decoration
before the larger domestic belongings were so treated. Of the
decorations of lock-plates the German example of the Imperial Eagle
from the Town Hall, Nuremberg (Fig. 183), is interesting as an instance
of great simplification of form to suit the material in which it is
expressed. Fig. 184 is another but more ornate example of the treatment
of pierced and chased metal.
[Illustration: FIG. 183.--Lock-plate. German. From the Town Hall,
Nuremberg.]
[Illustration: FIG. 184.--Decorated Hinge in Pierced and Chiselled
Metal. German. Seventeenth Century.]
[Illustration: FIG. 185.--Lock-plate. Chiselled Iron. French.
Fifteenth Century.]
The French lock-plate in chiselled iron (Fig. 185) was in the Spitzer
Collection, and is decorated with the crowned Arms of France, and
with Navarre, Aragon, Bearn and Bourbon quarterly and with a coat at
top repeated on either side, consisting of three pommes de pin, or
pine cones. The fleur-de-lis in Gothic tracery on the hasp is also
notable. Fig. 186 bears the crowned Arms of France surrounded by the
beautiful collar of St. Michael. Below is the well-known monogram
which combines the initials of Henry II and of Diana de Poitiers,
and her badge of crescents forms a circular device interlaced within
the guilloche border, and a further allusion to her goddess namesake
occurs in the bows and arrows at the sides. A fellow bolt-plate in the
same collection has the Arms of France dimidiating those of Medici
and Dauphiny on the shield at top, and in place of the crescent badge
below, is a rainbow in clouds and surrounded by laurel; and the
monogram, a double K for Queen Katherine, is several times repeated.
[Illustration: FIG. 186.--Bolt-plate. French. Sixteenth Century.]
[Illustration: FIG. 187.--Panel in Chiselled Iron. Sixteenth Century.]
A very beautiful work, also in chiselled iron, is the panel of the
armorial insignia of the Emperor Charles V, the Arms with the Columns
the latter rising from waves of the sea, being the device that
represented the Pillars of Hercules and the motto “plus oultre” (Fig.
187). The arms are encircled with the collar of the Toison d’Or very
boldly treated. The work is Spanish of the early sixteenth century,
and is notable for its exquisite finish as well as for its general
excellence of design and drawing.
[Illustration: FIG. 188.--Key with the Arms of an Archbishop.
Eighteenth Century.]
[Illustration: FIG. 189.--Key. Eighteenth Century.]
Examples of keys, also from the Spitzer Collection, are given in Figs.
188 and 189. The former bears the arms of a Cardinal Archbishop, and
the latter, which is excellently pierced and chiselled, has two lions
supporting a badge, a crowned castle. Each is of good design, its use
and material having been well considered so that it is of a decorative
shape that does not impede its usefulness. The latter is full of minute
and exquisite detail, indistinguishable in the illustration. Besides
the decoration of the barrel with a spiral band, there are eagles’
heads on its wards and the words “vive le roi” are twice inscribed on
it in letters of gold.
[Illustration: FIG. 190.--Repoussé Buckler in the Royal Armoury,
Stockholm.]
The beautiful and elaborate repoussé and engraved work that was very
largely employed in the decoration of metal in the Middle Ages and
the Renaissance, found full scope in the magnificent armour in which
the greatest artists and the most skilful craftsmen combined their
forces to make a gift that should be worthy of a princely hand.
Repoussé decoration consisted for the most part of the allegorical
and mythological subjects that were so fashionable at the period, and
comparatively little heraldry was done in that way. Engraving and
etching, on the other hand, were extensively used to decorate metal
with arms and badges.
In the execution of repoussé work a metal plate is fixed down to a bed
of pitch, a material which affords an efficient support while being
soft enough to yield to the shaping metal as it is hammered and punched
into the designed form. The work is afterwards chased and finished
on the face, but the essential quality is, of course, that of being
modelled into relief from behind. A very beautiful piece of repoussé
work is the quadrangular buckler, of late sixteenth century work, in
the Royal Armoury at Stockholm, which was bought in Holland by Charles
XV of Sweden (Fig. 190). The design is a fine bold treatment of the
Arms of the Visconti, and the workmanship is probably Italian. There is
a backplate with repoussé arms in the same collection.
[Illustration: FIG. 191.--Powder-horn with Armorials. The Royal
Armoury, Dresden. Sixteenth Century.]
The powder horn (Fig. 191) in the Royal Armoury at Dresden is a very
good example of the treatment of heraldry on a small object, and
incidentally shows the practice of placing helms on the heads of
supporters in order to display some of the crests.
[Illustration: FIG. 192.--Bill or Glaive, German (1620).]
Engraving being extensively used to cut decorative bands of ornament
on the armour, was naturally the method adopted for ornamenting
the blades of weapons and other flat surfaces. Indeed, it was from
the engraving for ornament’s sake that engraving for the purpose
of reproduction by printing was evolved by Finiguerra, the famous
Florentine goldsmith, in the middle of the fifteenth century. This
interesting experiment, if it were an experiment and not a practice
whose application had been before unnoticed, is said to have been made
on a piece of plate, a pix, of which the only impression is said to be
in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Engraving was also preliminary
to niello work and to damascening, two somewhat analogous methods of
decoration, that are peculiarly suitable to the ornamentation of
metal. In the former the lines of the engraving are filled with a
sort of black enamel which is fixed in its place by heat, while in
damascening the design, drawn with boldly cut lines on the steel, is
filled in with gold or other metal hammered in with mallets, and the
whole surface is then polished.
The halberds and partisans that were of the nature of ceremonial
weapons, the arms of body guards, for example, were usually decorated
in some such way. The bill or glaive (Fig. 192) is a good example
of German work of its period, and the halberd (Fig. 193) is a very
interesting specimen of French work of a little earlier date.
These examples will be found valuable in their bearing on the
decoration of ceremonial tools such as the trowels with which
foundation-stones are laid.
In engraving a surface for subsequent treatment with another metal or
with enamel the process itself will dictate the use of a strong and
suitable method of cutting. When, however, the engraving is to stand
on its own qualities it is important to bear in mind the difference
between engraving that is employed as decoration and that intended for
printing. This distinction has frequently been lost sight of, with the
result that there is much engraving of the sort that, however well it
might print, and in some cases this is more than doubtful, it certainly
does not decorate; while fine bold cutting that is done in the right
way will realize the value of the play of light on the incised line,
and the consequent ornamental effect. In this connexion it may perhaps
be permitted to define shortly the technical distinction between
etching and engraving. In etched work, then, the design is bitten
into metal with an acid mordant, while engraving is done with a cutting
tool.
[Illustration: FIG. 193.--Halberd, Damascened. French (1596).]
Etching is largely evident in the decoration of metal, frequently
taking the form of lowering the background by biting-in with acid, and
thus leaving the design to appear in masses of polished surface in
contrast with the darkened colour of the bitten metal, and the details
are put in with lines that are etched or engraved, as may be most
convenient.
[Illustration: FIG. 194.--Cistern in Cast Lead.]
An important quality of this kind of treatment is that while the
objects are enriched and very expressively decorated their practical
efficiency for work is in no way impaired, and this may fairly be taken
to be a conclusive test of right decorative treatment.
[Illustration: FIG. 195.--Fountain in Cast Lead. Dutch. Seventeenth
Century.]
Interesting features of Renaissance dwellings were the rainwater heads,
cisterns, fountains, statues and other garden accessories that were
cast in lead; architectural fashions which are again coming into vogue
with the returning regard for the style of the Renaissance. The cistern
(Fig. 194) is an heraldic example in cast lead, and Fig. 195 is a
fountain in the same material. The latter is Dutch work of the early
seventeenth century, and was brought from Bois-le-duc. The motives,
eagles displayed, lions’ heads and the lion rampant of Holland which
holds in its paws a sword and a sheaf of arrows, are thrice repeated
round the central pipe, which is surmounted by a crown.
[Illustration: FIG. 196.--Arms of Oxford University. Panel, Copper,
silvered and oxidized. G. W. Eve.]
Yet another method of metallic production is shown in electro deposited
replicas of modelled designs such as Fig. 196, a panel treatment of the
Arms of Oxford University, which may be considered in connexion with
its fellow of Cambridge, Fig. 89.