WRINKLES FOR COLLECTORS 385
Cleaning copper and brass--Lacquering metal--Polishing
brass--Restoring antique finishes--Using the burnisher--Brass
rubbings.
INDEX 395
ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG.
1. FINE COPPER EWER _Frontispiece_
PAGE
2. (1) BRONZE BUCKLER FROM THE THAMES VALLEY 39
3. (2) ANOTHER BUCKLER FROM ABERYSTWYTH 39
4. PART OF THE HOARD OF IMPLEMENTS OF THE
LATE BRONZE AGE, FOUND IN KING'S CO., IRELAND 55
5. (1) BRONZE CALDRON 67
6. (2) URN OF THE LATER BRONZE AGE 67
7. BRONZE SAUCEPAN WITH FOLIATED HANDLE 85
8. EWER OF HAMMERED COPPER 85
9. LAMP OF CAST BRONZE 85
10. LAMP OF BRASS INLAID WITH COPPER 85
11. BRASS AQUAMANILE (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY) 99
12. BRASS _COUVRE DE FEU_, A RARE EARLY PIECE 113
13. COPPER VANE ON BILLINGSGATE FISH MARKET 119
14. THE CITY DRAGON AS A WEATHER-VANE 119
15. COPPER COCK VANE, ONE OF FOUR ON SMITHFIELD MARKET 119
16. BRONZE KNOCKER OF THE ARMORIAL TYPE 129
17. BRASS DROP KNOCKER IN THE FORM OF A DOLPHIN 129
18. BRASS WELL BUCKET 129
19. CURIOUS DOUBLE CANDLESTICK 135
20. VENETIAN CANDELABRUM (ONE OF A PAIR) 141
21. BRONZE INCENSE BURNER AND INCENSE BOAT 145
22. THE COPPER-GILT CROSS ON ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL 149
23. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ROOM IN THE LONDON MUSEUM 157
24. BRONZE CALDRON IN TRINITY HOSPITAL, LEICESTER 161
25. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY BRASS PAN 165
26. BRASS TRIPOD POT 165
27. CALDRON OF CAST BRASS 165
28. BRASS COOKING VESSEL WITH CURVED HANDLE 165
29. SKILLET (BRASS), THE HANDLE OF WHICH IS
ENGRAVED WITH THE MOTTO "PITTY THE PORE" 169
30 AND 31. BRONZE COOKING VESSELS, ATTRIBUTED TO
THE BEGINNING OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 169
32 AND 33. COPPER WATER JUG AND WATER POT 173
34. COPPER WATER JUG AND COVER 173
35. BRASS TWO-HANDLED WATER VESSEL 173
36. A FINELY-PIERCED BRASS TRIVET, DATED 1668 177
37. BRASS-TOPPED TRIVET, WITH ADDITIONAL LEG STAY 177
38. BRASS-TOPPED TRIVET, WITH TURNED WOOD HANDLE 177
39. COPPER HELMET-SHAPED COAL-BOX 181
40. BRASS FOOT-WARMER WITH BAIL HANDLE 185
41 AND 42. EARLY BRASS OR BRONZE HAND-WARMER,
SHOWN OPEN AND CLOSED 185
43 AND 44. BRASS CHIMNEY ORNAMENTS (ONE EACH OF PAIRS) 189
45. BRASS HORSE, A CHIMNEY OR HOB-GRATE ORNAMENT 189
46. A TWO-TUBE CANDLE MOULD 197
47. TWO TYPES OF EARLY PRICKET CANDLESTICKS 197
48. PAIR OF CANDELABRUM OF EARLY TYPE (CENTRAL
FIGURE) AND TWO OLD OIL LAMPS 201
49. GROUP OF RARE CANDLESTICKS, ALMS-DISH, AND EWERS 205
50. EARLY BRONZE LAMP 209
51. OLD BRASS LANTERN 213
52. BELL CAST BY JOHN PENNINGTON AT EXETER IN 1670 223
53. GROUP OF BELL-METAL MORTARS 223
54. AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FLAGSTAFF HEAD OF
BRASS, ORIGINALLY GILT 233
55. THE WINCHESTER MOOT HORN 233
56. THE WINCHESTER BUSHEL (STANDARD MEASURE) 237
57. OLD MEASURES BASED ON THE WINCHESTER STANDARD 237
58. A PINT MEASURE OF THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 243
59. A WINCHESTER PINT OF THE DAYS OF QUEEN ANNE 243
60. OLD FRENCH WEIGHTS 243
61. BRONZE TIGER, BY ANTOINE LOUIS BARYE 251
62. BRONZE LION, BY BARYE 255
63. BRONZE STAG, BY BARYE 259
64. COFFEE-POT OF HAMMERED COPPER FROM SYRIA 265
65. SARACENIC DECORATED BRASS BASIN 269
66. JAPANESE KETTLE (_YUWAKASHI_) 275
67. PAIR OF VASES OF RED-BROWN COPPER, RELIEVED
WITH BLACK LAC, FROM MORADABAD 275
68. BRONZE FIGURE (ONE OF A PAIR) INLAID WITH
SILVER AND GOLD 285
69. AMIDA (INDIAN IDOL) 291
70. A "BLUE" TARA (INDIAN IDOL) 291
71. AMITAYUS (INDIAN IDOL) 291
72. VAJRA DHARMA (INDIAN IDOL) 291
73. AMITAYUS (INDIAN IDOL) 291
74. JAPANESE PRICKET CANDLESTICK IN THE FORM
OF CRANE AND TORTOISE 295
75. JAPANESE RITUAL VASE 299
76. SMALL TWO-HANDLED RITUAL VASE 299
77. CIRCULAR VASE ON STAND 299
78. BRONZE OVIFORM EWER 315
79. BRASS EWER WITH ARTISTIC HANDLE 315
80. DUTCH ORNAMENTAL BRASS CISTERN 323
81. FRENCH EWER OR TANKARD WITH FANCY HANDLE 323
82. FRENCH EWER WITH GROTESQUE MOUTH (SIXTEENTH CENTURY) 323
83. EARLY DIALS--ON THE LEFT AN ARMILLARY DIAL;
IN THE CENTRE PILLAR DIAL; AND ON THE
RIGHT A RING DIAL 331
84. CURIOUS OLD MICROSCOPE, MADE IN 1780 331
85. ENGRAVED POCKET CLOCK 337
86. A HANDSOME BRONZE BAROMETER 343
87. BOWL OF THE MING PERIOD 353
88. BOX OF PEKIN ENAMEL 353
89. MING BOWL 353
90. FINE ALTAR SET OF CLOISONNÉ ENAMELS (CH'IEN LUNG PERIOD) 359
91. COLLECTION OF BRASS AMULETS (HARNESS BRASSES) 371
GLOSSARY
GLOSSARY
=Astrolabe.=--The astrolabe is an instrument which was largely used in
taking the altitude of the sun or stars at sea. It was well known to
the Greeks, and takes its names from two Greek words, meaning _a star_
and _to take_. Perfected by the Arabs, the instrument was introduced
into Europe about the tenth century. It is said that the most famous
examples are to be seen in the museums at Madrid and Florence. There is
one in the British Museum, which was made for Henry, Prince of Wales,
in 1574.
=Barrow.=--Mounds in which bronze celts, knives, spear-heads, and food
receptacles are found along with the remains of chieftains and others
of the prehistoric peoples once inhabiting this country. The term
"barrow" originally denoted a "little hill." Round barrows are the
most common form, although some are oval and some of the "long barrow"
type. The methods of burial differed, but in most instances implements
of stone or bronze as well as vessels of pottery and some trinkets
belonging to the dead were usually placed near to the body.
=Betel-Nut Boxes.=--The beautifully ornate boxes, chiefly found in
India, made for holding the betel-nut and the shell lime used by the
natives who chew the leaves and nut of the areca palm.
=Bidri Metal.=--The metal objects known as bidri are made of an alloy
of copper-zinc and lead, damascened with silver, showing a peculiarly
striking contrast in black and white. The villages round Lucknow are
famous for this curious and effective inlaid metal work.
=Brass.=--An alloy of copper and zinc. Early brass was copper mixed
with calamine melted in a crucible. The ancient form of alloyed metal
employed by the Romans was copper and tin, which, although frequently
termed "brass" is more correctly defined as bronze (see Bronze). The
greater the proportion of zinc the lighter the colour; but the addition
of an extra quantity of zinc reduced the tenacity and ductility of the
metal.
=Brasses.=--The term brasses is applied (in antiquarian and curio
metallurgy) to the monumental brasses which as early as the first half
of the thirteenth century replaced the older effigies, such as those
of the Crusaders, which may be seen in the Temple Church, in London.
The brasses, of which many rubbings have been taken, include the large
brasses, covering nearly the whole of their tomb flag, and the small
brasses on which were engraved emblems, escutcheons, and inscriptions,
inset into large slabs of marble or stone, ornamenting rather than
constituting the covering of tombs.
=Brazier.=--Primarily a pan for holding burning coals. The brazier was
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a domestic appliance for
keeping hot dishes for the table, some very interesting examples of an
ornamental character, doubtless used for that purpose, being referred
to in Chapter VIII. The brazier, so called to-day, is a tripod open
fire chiefly used out of doors in some open space.
=Bronze.=--The bronze of the ancients consisted chiefly of pure copper
and an alloy of tin. In those very early days the compounding and
mixing of the metals must have been done largely by experience and
"rule of thumb." It was before the days of metallurgical research and
before the chemistry of metals was understood. As yet there was no
formula. Curiously enough the proper nomenclature of metals has never
been formulated, and "bronze" is the term still applied in a very
haphazard way to various alloys.
Quite recently a very able lecture was delivered by Dr. Rosenhain,
of the National Physical Laboratory, on the "Nomenclature of Alloys"
at a meeting of the Birmingham Section of the Institute of Metals.
Every one, he told us, described metals "at his own sweet will," and
for the most part by misleading terms. He suggested in reference to
copper-bronze alloys that "copper-zinc" might denote an alloy with more
copper than zinc in it, and "zinc-copper" when the former metal was
present in a greater degree. He thought "tin-copper" would serve as a
fairly wide definition of modern bronze. In such bronzes aluminium is
now generally added. Other scientists have suggested the definition of
bronze by chemical numerals, thereby indicating their contents with
more exactitude. At present, however, the term bronze is very elastic.
=Buckler.=--The old English name _bocler_ denoted a shield with a boss.
It was worn on the left arm; used in the Middle Ages to parry blows
rather than intended to act as a cover for the body like the larger and
more cumbrous shields.
=Chattie or Chatty.=--A porous earthenware vessel used in India for
cooling water and other purposes.
=Chaufferette.=--A spherical metal vessel in the interior of which was
a small chain, from which was suspended a cup in which could be placed
a piece of red-hot metal or charcoal. It was usually a hand-warmer;
some chaufferettes, however, were larger, almost like small stoves.
The name is derived from a table stove or small furnace, literally
a cylindrical box of sheet-iron, the word coming from the French
_chauffer_, to heat.
=Circe-Perdu Process.=--The Japanese have been wonderfully clever in
their manipulation of metals, especially considering the very primitive
appliances they used in the early days. Some of their most remarkably
intricate bronzes were fashioned and modelled in wax, delicately
tooled, hardened a little, and then covered over with layers of fine
clay until the mould became strong enough. The clay mould when dried
was heated until the wax ran out, leaving a smooth and beautifully
finished mould in which the bronze metal could be poured, the clay
being broken away when it was cold. Great skill and at the same time
much patience were needed to produce such charming effects. The bronzes
of old Japan were frequently inlaid with fine and delicate tracery in
silver and gold. Up to comparatively recent times beautifully modelled
ornaments were fashioned by such laborious processes, and even now by
more modern methods much labour is expended on their production.
=Counters.=--Counters have been used in card games from quite early
times. They were frequently of engraved metal. In the reign of James
I., we are told by Horace Walpole, one Nicholas Hilliard was licensed
for twelve years to engrave card counters on which was the Royal
portrait. In later reigns similar counters were so engraved. Those
of the time of Queen Anne bore a great resemblance to the obverse of
the then current coins. Sets of counters were frequently supplied in
metal boxes, the exteriors of which were often decorated by engravings.
It should be clearly understood that metal card-counters--old and
modern--are quite distinct from commercial counters or jettons.
=Couvre de Feu.=--The French term, literally, cover of the fire, became
the name of the metal shield or cover with which the fire was shut down
in the days of the Norman kings. From the same root term the English
curfew is derived. It was the curfew bell that sounded the signal
for the _couvre de feu_ to be brought out and lights and fires to be
extinguished. These metal plates, so frequently engraved all over, are
among the rarities of domestic curios (see p. 113).
=Damascene.=--The process of inlaying steel or other metal work with
silver or gold beaten into the incised metal. To damascene (also
spelled damasken) was a process first emanating from Damascus--hence
its name.
=Dialling.=--A dial plate is made by fixing to a flat surface a stile
or gnomon, which forms with the horizon an angle equal to the latitude
of the place in which it is to be used. When the gnomon is in position
a line is drawn upon the surface of the plate so that the shadow of the
stile falls exactly upon it at noonday, the plane through the stile
and the sun coinciding with the meridian. It cannot be too clearly
understood by users of old sundials that dial plates used in any other
latitude than that for which they were constructed must necessarily be
inaccurate.
=Ember Tongs.=--These little tongs were formerly used to take up the
hot embers from among the ashes of a dying fire. They were constantly
in use in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many being
decorative, the handles often being fashioned to serve the purpose of a
pipe stopper.
=Enamels.=--The enamels applied to copper or brass are glass coloured
with oxides of metals, producing blue, green, violet, red, and other
shades. These when fused adhere to the metal surface and are very
lasting. Various processes have been adopted, especially in the fine
arts. The principal older processes are champlevé, cloisonné, and
Limoges. In the first named the spaces to be filled in with enamels are
cut into the metal foundation; then, when the enamels have been fired,
they are rubbed down and polished. The cloisonné process, chiefly
practised in the East, consists of small cells or cloisons formed of
wire filled with the requisite colours. Limoges enamels, the finest
period of which is placed in the sixteenth century, were formed by a
ground of enamel painted over, chiefly with classical subjects.
Opaque enamels on, usually, a convex copper disc or plate, were the
work of later craftsmen. At Battersea and Bilston in England, towards
the close of the eighteenth century, many small boxes and trinkets
(see p. 356) were produced. The enamels of recent date applied to
utilitarian objects and cooking vessels are seldom fixed upon a
ground-work of copper--iron or steel being the usual base. In jewelry
and small trinkets enamelling on copper is still practised, many such
objects being of Oriental origin.
=Fibula.=--A small brooch or buckle. Many of the beautifully fashioned
fibulæ have been found among the remains of Roman London, a large
number being on view in the Guildhall Museum.
=Gipciere.=--A kind of pouch formerly worn at the girdle, an early type
of purse. The name is sometimes spelled _gipser_.
=Hookah.=--The name given to the bottle through which tobacco smoke is
passed. In smoking with a hookah the smoke is cooled by being made to
pass through water.
=Latten.=--The name is primarily derived from the nature of the
material--thin sheets. The brass or latten brass was formerly used
chiefly for making church utensils. Black latten consists of milled
sheets of brass, composed of copper and zinc; roll latten, of metal
polished on both sides; and white latten of brass and tin.
=Meander.=--A term applied to the decorations on Japanese and other
bronzes. To wind, to twist, meandering like the winding river Maeander,
in Phrygia, from which the proverbial term is derived.
=Mirrors of Bronze.=--The bronze mirrors of the Romans were given their
reflective power by using an alloy of antimony and lead, a combined
metal which took a highly reflective polish; the backs, handles, and
frames were of bronze.
=Mortars.=--Mortars such as those referred to on p. 226 with
accompanying pestles, were commonly in domestic use from the sixteenth
to the eighteenth centuries. In later years they were employed
chiefly in the preparation of drugs, but more recently they have been
superseded by the modern way of preparing spices and other compounds by
machinery. The form of the vessel may be described as an inverted bell,
the substances therein being pounded or rubbed with the pestle.
=Patina.=--A term expressive of the colour or encrustation which is
imparted to works of art by age. It is used chiefly in reference to the
beautiful green formation which covers ancient bronzes, shading from
light green to deep brown. This crustation consists of basic copper
carbonate, the result of exposure to the air. It is chiefly found on
bronzes, the alloy of which is mostly of tin and very little zinc. The
patina or patine is also the name given by the Romans to a shallow
basin used for domestic purposes.
=Pilgrims' Signs.=--The symbols or signs worn by pilgrims when visiting
one or other of the famous shrines in this country in mediæval days
were distinct from the crests or badges of wealthy patrons which were
at one time worn pretty generally as indicating on whose service the
journey they were making was being performed. Pilgrims' signs were worn
on the outward journey chiefly as protective amulets; on the return
journey mostly as proof of the pilgrimage, such signs being purchased
at or near the shrines to which homage had been paid. The chief shrines
in this country were those of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury, and
Walsingham Priory in Norfolk, where Our Lady of Walsingham was held in
high repute.
=Weather-Vane.=--The vane denotes any flat surface attached to an axis
and moved by the wind, usually applied to some elevated object for the
purpose of telling which way the wind blows. A strip of metal cut to
some fanciful form and placed upon a perpendicular axis around which it
moves easily.
I
THE
METAL
AND ITS
ALLOYS
CHAPTER I
THE METAL AND ITS ALLOYS
Ancient bronze--The bronzes of Greece, Rome, and Eastern
nations--Copper for enamels--The brass of commerce--Bell
metal--The sources of copper--The making of brass--Copper as an
alloy--The characteristics of metals.
The coppersmith has taken a prominent place among the craftsmen of
all nations, and at all periods, and in not a few instances he has
been acknowledged as an artist of no mean order. The material upon
which he has worked has been copper and its alloys and compounds.
From this metal have been produced many valuable antiques, and among
the work of the coppersmith of more recent days there are objects of
intense interest and of great beauty. In this work many collectable
objects have been classified, and in the different groups of metal-work
referred to attention is drawn to these beautiful and sometimes quaint
reminders of past generations, and also to some of the most notable
non-collectable metal-work which may be seen and admired in museums and
art galleries, and to a few of the copper monuments, memorials, and
historic relics which are gazed at by the curious, oftentimes without
thought of the materials of which they are composed.
Ancient Bronze.
The raw material, copper, smelted and beaten or poured from a
crucible into moulds, was in more ancient times used in its unalloyed
purity--and it is still used in that state. It was, however, soon
discovered that copper might be improved for many purposes by mixing
with it other metals possessing different properties. The prehistoric
peoples who lived in Britain, and in other countries within reach, soon
added tin, which was found in Cornwall quite near to the surface, and
was from early times sold to Phoenician traders, thereby producing
bronze. It is of this metal that most of the much valued curios of
the so-called Bronze Age are made. Those who fashioned them were
clever manipulators of the alloyed metal, and by processes now little
understood were able to temper tools and weapons and to give them
keen-cutting edges. Our museums are full of spear-heads, celts, axes,
and palstaves of bronze, which were cast in moulds of stone cut to the
required shapes by those primitive workers in metal, who used simple
crucibles in which it was melted.
[Illustration: FIG. 2 (1).--BRONZE BUCKLER FROM THE THAMES VALLEY.
FIG. 3 (2).--ANOTHER BUCKLER FROM ABERYSTWYTH.
(_In the British Museum._)]
The prehistoric bronzes, some examples of which are referred to in
another chapter, are the earliest collectable curios formed of metal.
They include implements of war and of the chase and some domestic
utensils and cooking vessels. To these useful objects must be added
ornaments and trinkets of bronze, so many of which have been found
in the barrows and burying-places of prehistoric races.
The knowledge of bronze appears to have been widespread. It was
understood by those who dwelt in this country, by the inhabitants of
European countries, by Eastern nations, and by the Egyptians, who left
such wonderful monuments behind them, giving evidence that they knew
how to impart a knife-like edge to their tools of bronze.
Bronzes of Greece and Rome and Eastern Nations.
The ancient bronze of prehistoric days must not be confused with the
metals or compounds of copper and its alloys which enabled the Greeks
to produce such wonderful statues. They learned to impart hardness
to copper, and wrought much delicate handiwork, much of which has
perished; but enough has been spared to confirm classic history and to
enable us to realize something of their conceptions of the old gods
and personified hopes and aspirations. In like manner the wonderful
bronzes of China and Old Japan were wrought; the metal-worker's art in
those countries goes back many centuries. Some of the more delicately
chiselled figures and groups were first modelled in wax upon an iron
core, the mould being then formed of soft clay. When the clay was
baked the wax melted, and running away through prepared outlets, left
a smooth cavity into which the bronze was afterwards poured. When the
metal was cold the clay would easily be broken away, and the object, at
the moulding of which we often marvel, made perfect. In course of time
such bronzes have been coated over with a beautiful patina of green,
that natural finish which age can alone impart. It is in that state so
many of the bronzes of Grecian sculptors are found, and it is covered
with patina of many delightful shades that we buy the metallic curios
from China and Japan.
Copper for Enamels.
In the days when so many beautiful ecclesiastical ornaments were
fashioned, copper was the foundation used by mediæval artists as
the base of their exquisite enamels. These beautiful objects are
especially referred to in Chapter XVIII, where reference is also made
to the enamels of Eastern countries, in the making of which brass was
frequently used as the foundation. Copper has been found suitable as
the groundwork upon which super-finishes have given that superiority
and attractiveness associated with many of the fine arts. It was
suitable for gilding over and for decorating with precious stones.
Copper was also frequently used by painters, its smooth surface being
regarded as an excellent material on which to work. As an example,
some of the religious pictures, especially miniatures, were painted on
copper, instead of on wood panels.
The Brass of Commerce.
Many speak of brass as a metal apart from copper, yet the brass of
commerce, worked up in many forms, is only a composite metal of which
copper is the basis. The popularity of pure copper as the material
from which household utensils and many constructional objects of
use and ornament were made in the past continued unabated until
metallurgical chemists discovered how, by using an alloy of zinc, the
metal we call brass could be cast, rolled, and otherwise manipulated.
Among the advantages claimed for brass is that it has a harder surface
and is more resisting than copper. From the days of Queen Elizabeth
onward it was much favoured for domestic vessels, and even at the
present time it is used to some extent; there has, however, always been
a concurrent use of copper.
Bell Metal and Other Alloys.
There is yet another important alloy, which from its chief use takes
the name of bell-metal; its companion alloy is gun-metal. In the mixing
of these metals special alloys are aimed at according to the object in
view, that is to say, the ingredients vary, but, broadly defined, the
copper and its alloy tin used in bell-metal are in the proportion of
three to one. The metal was in the past used for those much employed
articles of commercial and domestic use, mortars, in addition to the
founding of bells. Bell-metal was also the material of which weights
and measures (especially the standards kept in many of the old cities)
were chiefly made (see illustrations and references thereto in Chapters
X and XI).
The Sources from which Copper is Derived.
Copper seems to have been very widely distributed all over the world,
a fact that has contributed to its general use. At one time a local
metal employed in a pure state and in conjunction with alloys, chiefly
where it was mined, it is now brought to the metal-founder from other
parts of the world. Although vast quantities of copper are now imported
into England, it was from British mines that the supply was drawn in
days gone by. The Britons understood its use, no doubt finding it out
by accident, just as the natives of many other countries have done.
Copper, as evidenced by the marvellous Benin bronzes, was known in
Central Africa long ago. The mines at Mansfield, in Germany, are the
oldest in Europe, and there workers have been digging up copper for
seven centuries.
The collector of old metal objects naturally takes the greater
interest in well authenticated specimens known to have been fashioned
in districts once famous for their copper mines. Unfortunately, the
Cornish mines produce little ore now. When the Romans worked them they
obtained copper quite near to the surface; but such easily mined ores
have long been cleared.
Copper smelting was carried on in Cumberland and Northumberland in
days gone by. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries copper was
smelted in Yorkshire and Lancashire. Then we read of the reopening of
old Cornish mines and of furnaces being erected in Bristol. The mines
of Anglesea are less known, although they were once very active. South
Wales has for many years past been closely identified with copper
smelting, and rolling mills were established in Swansea as early as
1720; and although the better knowledge of metallic chemistry enables
manufacturers to produce copper more economically than in days gone by,
the old principle of crushing, calcining, roasting, and washing the
ore, although improved by modern machinery, is still adhered to.
As with many other industries, the invention of the steam-engine was
a boon to the owners of copper mines in Cornwall, many being flooded
towards the end of the eighteenth century. With the steam-engine to
work them, pumps were put in operation, mines were cleared, and for
a time at any rate ore was procured and renewed activity was visible
in many British centres. In those days many of the things we now
regard as curios were being made. As with many other raw materials
the value of copper steadily advanced, for as trade and commerce
grew, immense quantities were used up for sheathing ships' bottoms,
roofing buildings, for engravers' plates, and for the rolls used in
the printing of calicoes. Other sources of supply have been found, for
the chain extending from Land's End to Dartmoor no longer serves. The
famous Parys Mines are no more, and it is from foreign countries the
supply comes. Some of our Colonies have proved rich in ores, such,
for instance, as South Australia, where it is said an early settler
examining the burrow of a wombat found the green mineral, that incident
leading to the opening of mines yielding vast quantities of copper ore.
The Making of Brass.
The brass of commerce, rolled in sheets, drawn in rods and wire,
and cast in ingots ready for the founder, is, as it has been stated,
a composite metal, very well suited to many purposes. During the
sixteenth century much progress was made in metal-founding. The
Worshipful Company of Founders was busy. Many "battery" works were set
up in England, and there brass was hammered or battered into shape.
Thus brass-workers were engaged in making useful pots and pans, now
in their much worn state eagerly sought after by the collector. Some
worked with the ladle and crucible, others with the hammer and anvil or
wood block.
The earlier brass was composed of copper mixed with calamine melted in
a crucible, a process which continued until the more modern form of
melting metallic zinc with copper was understood. Champion's process,
by which this newer method was carried out, was kept secret for some
time, but about the middle of the eighteenth century it was generally
understood and the process of stamping brass became a common one in the
Birmingham district.
Copper as an Alloy.
Copper, the base of so many alloys, has itself been found a useful
alloy of most workable metals, not only in modern times but in years
gone by. It is one of the best hardening agents in aluminium, the
newer metal which is to some extent displacing copper and brass
cooking pots and much ornamental metal-work. According to an expert,
aluminium is tasteless, and possesses all the advantages of copper
without its drawbacks. That being so, perhaps even vessels of brass,
such as may still be seen in kitchens, may soon become obsolete and
pass shortly into the rôle of the museum curio. Incidentally it may
be mentioned that aluminium is not altogether a new metal, neither
is its use confined to civilized countries, where metallurgists have
proved its advantages; for the natives of the Philippines, Borneo,
and other islands in the Pacific have long used it as an independent
metal, and also for the purposes of ornamenting other materials. Many
of the copper and brass curios brought into this country, the products
of native smiths, working far from civilized lands, are partly made of
aluminium, alloyed chiefly with native copper. The natives of Borneo
melt it in fireclay crucibles over a coke fire, and are very clever at
producing some remarkably fine pieces of metal-work, using different
metals for the same object; thus some of their daggers have brass
hilts and aluminium blades. The metal-worker has frequently introduced
aluminium in the decoration of copper and brass gongs, some of the
older examples from Japan being extremely decorative.
The Characteristics of the Metals.
Some collectors very wisely follow up their researches after new
treasures by investigating the methods of their production, and they
even visit modern works where similar methods, although more advanced,
are going on. Very interesting indeed is it to watch the molten metal
as it is mixed and poured into moulds and made into pigs. To see the
great rolling mills through which the bars are passed, and to watch
the hammering and drawing by the steam-hammer and powerful machinery,
is an education which enhances the interest there is in the possession
of finished goods--old and new.
It is said the brassfounder's requirements to-day are much the same as
they have always been, although perhaps there are more iron moulds used
and greater care is taken in their preparation. The mould must have a
good surface and be composed of the right kind of iron. The best metal
for the purpose appears to be one high in silica and low in combined
carbon, thus securing a soft iron which will not crack when the molten
metal strikes it. The science of metals is constantly being added to,
and the research of chemists of recent years has done much towards
improving the skill of present-day artists, most of whom, however,
readily give praise to the almost intuitive skill of the artists of
olden time.
The fashioning of copper and brass follows the preparation of the
metal; there are many reasons why copper and its compounds and alloys
have been so generally employed, one of the principal being that the
ductility of copper has made it welcome wherever the hammer has been
brought into play. The possibility of hammering out brass and copper,
and especially the latter, is seen in the extreme fineness to which
copper wire can be drawn. Hood uses the similitude when speaking of
how travel improves the mind, and tells of the gradual narrowing of
copper and brass as they become finer and finer, likening those who
have not travelled to the narrowed metal. Collectors of curios show
characteristic traits, twofold in application. There are some who
get more broad-minded the farther they travel, the more museums they
inspect, and the wider their knowledge of the antiquities they admire.
Others, specialists for the most part, get into very narrow grooves,
confining their hobbies to some one class of goods, not always the
most interesting in public estimation; then they wonder how it is that
their hobbies are not appreciated by their friends! Surely the greatest
delight is in a representative collection, such as the hobby under
review, which shows all the possibilities of copper and brass in their
varied treatment. In the examples which have come down to us from the
Ancients, in those schemes of decoration which mark clearly the work
of the artists of some one country or period, and in those general
collectable objects which have been brought together from everywhere,
there is a liberal education:
"Some minds improve by travel; others, rather,
Resemble copper wire, or brass,
Which gets the narrower by going farther."
II
THE
HUNTING
GROUND
CHAPTER II
THE HUNTING GROUND
In buried cities--Turned up by the plough--Among Saxon and
Norman remains--In hidden chambers--In local museums--Dealers'
shops--The engraver's art.
The multiplicity of collectable objects needed to supply collectors
makes the uninitiated wonder where all these antiques come from.
Countless numbers of beautiful objects have found their way into the
melting-pot in the past, and what once was old has in some new form
become once more a useful article, in its turn to be discarded and
perhaps melted up and recast.
In Buried Cities.
The curios which have been preserved for centuries beneath the soil
are often of priceless value, telling of the habits of peoples of
whom history has told us little. Celts, knives, spear-heads, and food
receptacles are discovered on the sites of prehistoric camping-grounds.
The delicately tooled bronzes from buried cities like Pompeii and
Herculaneum come to us with almost a living force in this twentieth
century. As we gaze at the wonderful beauty of their forms and the
charming patina of green with which they are covered, we can almost
imagine what they looked like in the hands of patrons of art in the
far-off times when they were first fashioned. Our own country is full
of ruins of ancient cities far below the present roadways. When the
Romans built Bath it was in a hollow much deeper than the level of the
modern city, and it is in these lower levels that relics of Roman Bath
are found.
There is a ring of sadness in the desolation of such ancient cities as
Verulamium, Cirencester, Kenchester, and similarly deserted locations
where modern excavations have been going on recently. It seems curious
how the very sites of such once famous places have been lost, but not
strange when we remember that more recently occupied towns are but
grass mounds--to-day explorers are cutting into the turf-covered mounds
of Old Sarum to ascertain where its chief buildings stood. The finds on
these ancient sites are varied; many of them are metallic, and although
of trifling intrinsic value are prized as being authentic curios.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--PART OF THE HOARD OF IMPLEMENTS OF THE LATE
BRONZE AGE, FOUND IN KING'S CO., IRELAND.
(_In the British Museum._)]
Turned up by the Plough.
The plough has played an important part in history, and collectors
owe much to that useful implement. It has been the means of bringing
to light many vessels which have been buried for centuries, for
although land has been ploughed many seasons, a deeper ploughshare
or more frequent ploughing on the same spot has brought nearer to
the surface a copper vessel or an earthen jar, full of antiquarian
interest. The field and the forest, and even the deserted mines, have
brought to collectors of old metal many interesting relics. Until quite
recently there was an old bronze caldron on view in the window of a
dealer in antiques in Chester. It was the prototype of many similar
vessels that have been made in later days in different parts of the
country, the model on which the more modern pots or camp-kettles of the
gipsies and the three-legged pots commonly suspended over the cottage
hearth, until comparatively modern times, have been fashioned. It is
worthy of note that the principle adopted by those early metal-workers
is still observed in the more scientific construction of cooking
vessels to-day. The form of the caldron was such that by applying heat
under the centre the flames spread and leapt up the sides, curling as
they travelled, following the lines fashioned by the coppersmiths, and
heating the contents of the vessel equally. Such ancient caldrons,
sometimes much worn and at others in fairly good condition, have been
preserved by Mother Earth until discovered in modern times.
Among Saxon and Norman Remains.
The Saxons and Normans used metal, and the brawny arms of the smiths,
and later the founders, fashioned the cooking-pots made in their day.
Many metal curios, much battered by fallen masonry, have been found
among the ruins of Norman castles and in some cases of the still
earlier Saxon dwellings. The discoveries of curios of those periods
are by no means frequent, and it would appear as if we must now be
content with storing carefully those relics already discovered. Modern
restorations and excavations have brought many valuable antiquities
to light, and authorities have been very careful to preserve them in
county or local museums.
In Hidden Chambers.
The splendour of mediæval days when feasting in the great hall of the
baron or overlord has been revealed by many noted finds. The great
kitchens of those mansions were full of copper and brass, and it is
from such supplies that many of the best authenticated specimens have
come. Some are historical; even bronze caldrons and more modest-looking
saucepans have been made to the order of some mediæval chieftain or
baron.
The life of the common people of this country varied little between
the days of the Norman Conquest and those of the Tudor sovereigns who
held court in the houses of the nobility. The dress, costume, and rough
splendour of the Elizabethan age had its effect, however, on the homes
of courtiers and eventually of the common people. When the stormy times
of the Civil War came there was a rude breaking up of the old order
of things, and in Cromwellian days some preparation for the new which
was to come. After the battlefield came the destruction of stronghold
and mansion by order of the Parliament. Some escaped, and within the
last century not a few domestic curios have been found during the
restoration and rebuilding of old houses dating from the time of the
Commonwealth. Priests' cells and secret chambers, sliding panels and
concealed cupboards, and other hidden places were the rule rather
than the exception at the time of the Civil War. In some of these
long-forgotten places of concealment some very interesting domestic
objects in copper and brass have been found during rebuilding and
restoration.
In Local Museums.
It is a moot point whether the frequent change in the ownership of
curios which goes on every day, as evidenced by the auction sales,
stirs up the curiosity of the collector and awakens his interest in
his hobby to a greater extent than when such curios are placed on view
in local museums. The fact remains that, notwithstanding the constant
circulation of curios, many find a permanent home in museums. Not only
do the national collections in the British Museum, and the Victoria
and Albert Museum at South Kensington grow rapidly, but in almost
every town of note there are local and great district museums. This
latter class is instanced in the Welsh National Museum at Cardiff.
There are two typical local museums in London--the Guildhall Museum and
the London Museum, which has just found a new home at Stafford House.
These museums stimulate local collectors, but they do not contribute
to their collections. As places of reference they are invaluable, for
the wider spread knowledge of antiques secured by the objects shown
prevents amateurs from falling into traps and consequently becoming
disheartened.
Dealers' Shops.
The shops of dealers supplement the auction-rooms. They are partly
fed from them and partly by the persistent search ever going on for
objects in which their owners have little interest and are willing to
part with for a consideration--not always the "top price." The greater
popularity of curio-hunting has caused a vigorous search of attic and
cellar at the instance of dealers as well as collectors. Even the
palaces of kings and queens and the houses of the nobility have been
ransacked, and treasures from an artistic point of view, as well as
from a utilitarian, have been brought to light and the dust of many
years wiped away.
Many delightful examples of the coppersmith's art were until recently
condemned by the travelling tinker as being no longer repairable,
with the natural consequence that, their value as antiques being
unknown, they were eventually sold for an "old song." Those pioneers of
collecting who had time on their hands and foresaw an accruing value
of even old metal went about from town to town examining the marine
stores and visiting villages and farmhouses in search of anything old
and curious. To-day there are few genuine antiques without some one to
value them. Nearly every collection belongs to an appreciative owner,
and when curios change hands it is generally at a premium instead of at
"a bargain price."
Hitherto reference has been made chiefly to metal curios of British
make, and to those objects with which Englishmen have become familiar.
The collector, however, is cosmopolitan in his aims, and cheerfully
searches the world over for objects of interest. His curios come from
the Far East, from Central Africa, and from all parts of Europe, and to
some extent from the American continents. There have been many methods
of producing metal-work, yet native workers in all countries have had
but two processes upon which they have based their plans, and it is
from the smiths who hammered copper and brass into shape, and in later
days stamped it, and the founder who cast the metal in moulds, that all
our curios come.
The Engraver's Art.
This outline of the hunting-ground of the collector would be incomplete
without some mention of the products of the graver's tool which has
produced so many works of art. The much prized mezzotints, stipples,
and line engravings are pictures for the most part printed from copper
plates. The metal rolled in sheets and planished becomes a work of
art in itself when covered with those beautiful pictures so cleverly
wrought upon the metal by the light touch of the graver.
Perhaps one of the most interesting uses to which copper has been put
is that of executing beautiful miniatures--tiny pictures, portraits,
and emblematic designs such as were used by traders on their stationery
in years gone by. The copper-plate engraver has left his mark, too, in
the beautifully quaint and very valued early issues of postage-stamps,
some of which were printed from copper plates. Just as copper plays an
important part in the production of postage-stamps and pictures, so
copper in conjunction with its alloys is the common metal of currency.
Some of the most valuable metallic curios are the ancient coins which
have been dug up from where they have been buried for centuries, or
discovered in some hidden chamber. Such little objects of copper or
bronze have an antiquarian value far beyond either their artistic
beauty or their age warrants being associated with them. Collectors of
metals know the value of some of the historic commemorative medallions
in bronze, and heroes and warriors show their appreciation of one of
the commoner metals in the value they set upon the simple Maltese cross
inscribed "For Valour," for the Victoria Cross is more coveted than any
naval or military award the Sovereign of these realms can bestow. Its
owners regard it as a precious relic, and the reluctance of those left
behind to part with it is seen in the large sum which has to be paid
for one of these simple bronze crosses when it comes in the market.
III
PREHISTORIC
BRONZES
CHAPTER III
PREHISTORIC BRONZES
The dawn of progress--London relics--The beauty of ancient
art--The useful bronzes, the prototypes of later brasses--The
forger at work.
As it has already been intimated, our older metal curios come to
us from the Bronze Age. In the relics of that period, in which the
British Museum is so rich, we are able to mark the great difference
that must have existed between the people who lived the "simple life"
in the Stone Age, and those who understood how to make and how to use
implements of bronze. Metal must have revolutionized the habits of the
people, fostered development, and marked progress as the Age advanced;
for with metal appliances there were greater possibilities, and from
the fact that while some used bronze others were content with flint,
it would appear that then, perhaps, more than at any other time, the
more advanced were sharply separated from those who, possessing lesser
intelligence and possibly fewer opportunities, stayed behind.
The Dawn of Progress.
The more advanced Britons and the men of the later Bronze Age in other
countries improved the patterns of their tools, the basis of which was
found in flint implements, which in the later Neolithic period had
become more varied. Even then they had hammer, saw, chisel, borer,
spear or javelin, and arrow-point. They had also a variety of knives;
some of curious sickle-like forms. There are weapons of war and weapons
of defence, and some obviously used for the more peaceful arts and
domestic purposes. As the collector secures specimens of the rarer
types of bronze and metal objects coming to us from those far-off days,
we read the story of the evolution of the race, and can picture in our
minds the onward march.
[Illustration: FIG. 5 (1).--BRONZE CALDRON; AND FIG. 6 (2).--URN OF THE
LATER BRONZE AGE.
(_In the British Museum._)]
The Romans did not find the ancient Britons quite savages, and we
sigh with regret when we think of the numberless relics of priceless
value--of bronze and of even more precious metals--which existed then,
but which have perished long ago. The melting-pot has been a terribly
fierce enemy to the collector of copper and brass, and it is really
wonderful how many rare objects of the Bronze Age remain--prehistoric
only in that we have no authentic records of the happenings of that
period. We have, however, abundant evidence of the importance of that
Age in the bronzes preserved to us for so long by Mother Earth, and now
carefully tended by museum curators and private collectors. Among the
fine examples we possess in our national collections are the ornamental
bucklers of which some have been found in Wales and other places.
That represented in Fig. 2 (1) came from the Thames Valley, and Fig.
3 (2) from the peat bogs near Aberystwyth; both may be seen in the
British Museum.
Some exceptional hoards have been found in Ireland, notably the bronzes
which were discovered in 1825 in a part of Whigsborough, called
Derreens, in King's Co. It is surmised that although the land is now
boggy the soil was at one time under cultivation, and from indications
it would appear as if the bronzefounder had worked on the spot. In Fig.
4 several representative implements found in that hoard are pictured;
their descriptions are as follows: Fig. 4 (1 and 3), palstaves; (5, 6,
and 7), daggers; (2) a pear-shaped bell; (4 and 8) curved trumpets, all
specimens of the latter part of the Bronze Age or of the beginning of
the Iron Age. Many fine bronze vessels, chiefly without feet, have been
found in Ireland. The two examples shown in Figs. 5 and 6 represent
the way in which they were made, especially Fig. 5 (1), in which the
riveting of the plates will be observed. Fig. 6 (2) has been designated
an urn. Both of these late bronzes are in the British Museum, along
with other Irish finds. In the same collection there is a trumpet of
horn with rings or bands of studs, the mouthpiece being at the side.
It is a curious relic of an Irish musician, found some years ago at
Drimoleague, Co. Cork.
London Relics.
London has been the site of an important camp, town, or city ever since
man lived in the marshes and upon the banks of Old Father Thames, and
among the finds in the neighbourhood have been relics of every period
of British civilization; and as a natural consequence London possesses
representative collections of the Bronze Age, as well as of later
periods. Collectors have many opportunities of buying, as well as of
inspecting prehistoric bronzes in museums and in less important private
collections. Some of these antiquities are of good form and possess a
beauty of their own. The vivid green, relieved with deeper shades, with
which age has painted these ancient relics gives them a peculiar charm,
and it would be vandalism indeed to attempt to "clean" the celts and
knives which antiquaries handle with such veneration and care.
The Beauty of Ancient Art.
During the last few years more attention has been given to the beauty
of the workmanship of the early objects of brass and copper relics
of prehistoric peoples, especially of the people who inhabited
this country in pre-Roman days. The London museums contain very
representative examples. To many the Guildhall Museum is of special
interest, in that every object there has been found within the
confines of the City of London. There are implements of the chase
and of war and peace. For instance, in the cases containing weapons
which may have been used for defence against wild animals, as well
as for aggressive campaigns, there are bronze celts, some socketed
with loops, side by side with a very fine tool and two small lumps of
copper, which were discovered near the celt. These latter represent
the unfinished material ready for the crucible and for the alloy which
was to turn them into a bronze of special hardness. In the same case
there are leaf-shaped swords and daggers of rapier form. There are also
spear-heads of slender shapes with sockets extending near to the point
of the weapon; and spear shaft-sockets of bronze, some of which were
found in Fetter Lane.
Of the late Celtic period there are examples of personal objects,
and it may be noted that duplicates of similar antiquities to those
deposited in the Museum are on sale in a great number of shops in
London, and now and then quite important parcels of these interesting
metallic mementoes of peoples unknown come under the hammer. Such
trinkets include bronze fibulæ, some enamelled, others of plain metal.
A very beautiful specimen terminating with a roughly formed snake's
head was found on the Thames bank near Hammersmith, on the site of
reputed pile dwellings, some little time ago. In the same locality a
bronze bowl and a mount were found soon afterwards. From the river near
Battersea came a bronze shield, specially interesting in that it was
decorated with enamelled ornaments. Horse-bits with enamelled rosettes
have also been found in London. Perhaps one of the most interesting
relics of that early age was a British helmet of copper, also decorated
with enamels, found near Waterloo Bridge. In the Guildhall Museum there
is a brooch made with a bow and pin in one piece, and quite a number of
other styles of bronze fibulæ. There are bronze hairpins, too, some
of the heads being decorated. There are Celtic tweezers, armlets of
bronze, and many rings.
To the inquisitive who like to inquire into the processes of making
things and to their sources, the remains of ancient workshops
represented by lumps of copper, strips of bronze, and objects partly
formed, are of special interest. There are bows, showing another
advance in civilization. There are spoons, too, of circular form,
hammered into shape. It has been said that bowls and spoons are the
earliest signs of domesticity and civilization. Our ancestors, who
lived on the seashore, made use of large shells, which gave them the
cue to the fashioning of a shallow dish, which eventually became a
bowl. The wings of the valves of the oyster and the pecten may have
given the suggestion of a handle to a primitive spoon. Ethnologists
have said that the broken cocoanut in the South Seas was the bowl of
the primitive tribes, and from it vessels in clay were moulded.
The Useful Bronzes, the Prototypes of Later Brasses.
The beautiful bronzes of the later part of the Bronze Age include
objects showing the gradual development and progress of the race. Not
only are the weapons those likely to be used in defence against attacks
from wild animals rather than for aggressive purposes, and the domestic
bronzes of more civilized forms, but there are in addition implements
of husbandry. In Ireland some very pronounced sickles and reaping-hooks
have been found. There are also musical instruments and sounding
horns, among them curved trumpets of bronze.
Many interesting although isolated finds have been made, such as a
curious bronze or brass bucket with corrugated flutes, which was found
at Weybridge, in Surrey, experts placing it among the relics of the
early Iron Age. From Faversham, in Kent, many bronze mirrors have been
secured, some of them being very ornamental, the backs being engraved
all over. In the North of England several interesting finds have been
made, too. Some of especial value were discovered in Heathery Burn
Cave, Co. Durham; they consisted of domestic utensils which were
probably used at the extreme end of the Bronze Age.
Among frequent finds is the patera or drinking-bowl, which must, of
course, be distinguished from the patine, which was a flat dish with a
raised rim, used for serving up meat or fish. Indeed, it would appear
that some of the peoples who dwelt in those far-off ages of which
we have no written history were more advanced in civilization and
in the arts and crafts than we usually realize. Modern research has
revealed much that was hitherto unknown, and scientists, explorers,
and antiquaries now hold the ancients in much greater respect than
formerly--they no longer regard them as "savages," although they may
class them with the "barbarians" of more modern Europe.
Professor Petrie, the famous Egyptologist, when speaking on his
wonderful researches some little time ago, said mankind had had a
long past. That past leads to the present, and without a knowledge
of the present and to some extent of the intermediate ages we cannot
fully understand the past. It is the curios of antiquity which help
us, and lead up by slow degrees to the present; this is understood by
the curio-hunter, and realized more and more as he goes further into
the past of nations. The curios of the Bronze Age are not limited
in locality. They are found in continents far removed from Western
civilization, for in the remains of ancient Peruvians there are tools
of bronze belonging to their far-off past. The Incas were not only
adepts at working the precious metals with tools of bronze, but they
were clever workers of other raw materials. They possessed beautiful
textiles of cotton and wool and were noted agriculturists, having
implements of tillage made of bronze.
The Forger at Work.
A warning note is often sounded by those who have paid dearly for
their experience. It is needed, for there are many pitfalls for the
unwary, especially in his researches among the relics of the Bronze
Age and periods which have been much copied by the makers of modern
antiques. It is worthy of note that in the middle of the nineteenth
century several Birmingham firms in making bronzed inkstands, bracket
lights, candelabra, and figures supporting lamps, copied the antique
very closely, one noted firm announcing on their trade circulars that
their designs were "according to Greek, Roman, and Gothic ornaments."
Examples of such comparatively modern work, when discovered tarnished
and neglected, may sometimes have a close resemblance to real antiques,
and even the curios of still greater antiquity--especially Egyptian
curiosities--have been much forged. The forger--or, as he would prefer
to be called, the maker of replicas--is still at work.
IV
GREEK
AND
ROMAN
CURIOS
CHAPTER IV
GREEK AND ROMAN CURIOS
Grecian bronzes--Relics of Roman occupation--Interesting
toilet requisites--Artificial lighting--Statues and
monuments--Romano-British art--A well staged exhibit.
It is from the curios in metal and the antiquities in stone which have
been discovered, chiefly in comparatively recent years, that we are
able to read with understanding the allusions made by classic writers
to domestic life as it was in ancient Greece and Rome. The records
of the art of Greece become more real when we have gazed upon the
beautiful and graceful statues and the furniture of the palace and
domain for which the artists and metal-workers of those days were so
justly celebrated.
Even the public school boy takes a greater interest in his studies when
he recognizes in the furnishings of his home antiquities from Greece or
those lands in which that once powerful nation founded colonies.
Grecian Bronzes.
In the modern replicas of antiques, and in the fashioning of the
common household bronzes of the present day, the craftsman, perhaps
unconsciously, gains inspiration from the older race of artists in
metals. Indeed, the nearer the workman adheres to the form of the
statues and domestic decorative metal-work of the ancients, the more
likely he is to succeed in imparting refinement to the modern home.
Ancient Greece was the nursery of art and the training ground of the
athlete and of the model who served as the type of the goddesses whose
perfect forms and attributes were regarded as worthy of the divinities
her sons and daughters worshipped. Most of the metal objects coming
to us from classic days are of bronze, toned and patinated. Images of
the gods and goddesses worshipped by the ancient Greeks were to be
found in every house. Wealthy patrons employed the artist in metal to
produce idols and appointments for the numerous temples they built.
It was the worship of many pagan deities that found work for many
craftsmen. The very multiplicity of the gods served the purposes of
trade, hence the supporters of pagan practices and worship found in
the metal-workers and artists who wrought such things powerful allies.
We read in Biblical accounts of that day that the introduction of
Christianity caused no small stir amongst them, and incited Demetrius,
the silversmith, and others to rise up against the "new religion,"
which gave no immediate promises of employment of metal-workers to
compensate them for the loss of trade in idols. It was thus that so
much that is beautiful when regarded as merely artistic bronze figures
was made. Among the favourite deities whose emblematic bronzes have
been preserved to us are Diana, Venus, Mercury, and Hercules. They rank
with the gods of brass of the heathen, and according to their classic
beauty are admired with the idols of metal from India and Africa (see
Chapter XIV).
In all these treasures from the old world, little known or understood
now, there is a blend of the decorative and artistic and the more
utilitarian objects of the household. The slaves of the old families
often lived luxurious lives, although the goodwill of their patrons and
owners might be fickle. They had their duties, and the metal objects
they handled and often skilfully manipulated are still preserved in our
museums. These were often fashioned with the same grace as the statues
which adorned porticoes and halls.
The ornamental objects of Greek workmanship include useful braziers or
bronze tripods which gave heat and also served as purifiers; for into
their round brass dishes were thrown perfumes to correct the smell of
the coals and charcoal, which were then held to be injurious. Such
braziers were also used by the Romans, and even in the Middle Ages were
not uncommon, pepper and cloves being then burned for fragrance.
Relics of Roman Occupation.
Although many beautiful objects have been imported into this country
by collectors and dealers bought in Rome itself, and in Italian and
other continental cities where Roman remains have been found, it is the
relics of the Roman occupation in Britain which take first place in
our estimation among the valued curios of that great nation. These have
been found in many places, often quite unexpectedly.
Modern London, like modern Rome, stands in part on ruins of an older
city. Hence it is that when foundations are being dug and excavations
to some 15 to 20 feet are made, relics of Roman London and of Saxon
and early Norman buildings which were built in subsequent ages upon
the older ruins come to light. It is amidst these ruins and the debris
of old architecture that metal curiosities are often found. Copper and
brass have not perished to the same extent as iron and more corrosive
metals. In London, Bath, Chester, and cities which were famous many
centuries ago, the earliest metal curiosities are unearthed. But many
of the most valued have been found where least expected, for it must be
remembered that even the sites of many old cities have been lost, and
green fields now cover the old foundations.
It is a little disappointing at first, when a collection of Roman
antiquities is under examination, to find that they bear a striking
resemblance to modern appliances--especially is that so in the cooking
utensils. Most of these early vessels are of bronze; some, however, are
of pure copper, mostly covered over with green patina. The useful seems
to have predominated over the ornamental; possibly it is that the more
substantial cooking-pots and pans have remained, although lighter and
more ornamental objects have perished.
The pots and saucepans are indeed remarkably like those which are now
used for similar purposes. This has been remarked by many who have had
to do with the uncovering of long buried ruins. A writer describing
a Roman kitchen attached to the villa of a patrician family of note
in the Republican era before Augustus assumed the purple, which had
been uncovered in Rome, said, "The culinary utensils found there are
much like our own, made of brass, some of them dipped or plated over
with silver." They consisted of kettles with feet, with a dome-shaped
opening under them, a hollow cylinder which entered into the kettle
base so that the fire could penetrate it.
Many of these utensils, whilst possessing great strength and lasting
qualities, were not altogether plain, for they were covered with
foliated ornament like the saucepan illustrated in Fig. 7. The
saucepans without handles were something like a caldron on feet; many,
however, were fitted with bail handles, by which they could be hung
over the fire by the aid of a tripod. The metal of which these early
vessels were made varied, for although some were of bronze, some were
made of a yellowish brass, like one found in London near Ludgate. The
Guildhall Museum is the best place to find a thoroughly representative
collection of Roman metal-work. In the cases there are curious
saucer-like bowls with and without handles, many spoons of bronze, and
a variety of ladles, some of which have long and narrow bowls; and
there are some culinary strainers, not unlike the modern colander.
There are many ewers and some bowls or basins of bronze. In Fig. 8 is
shown a ewer of hammered copper, the handle having at the time it was
made, or at some later period, been strengthened with brass wire, which
is in part flattened and stamped with medallions giving the vessel an
exceedingly ornamental appearance. This curious piece is to be seen in
the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Among the more important kitchen accessories which have been discovered
on the sites of Roman towns are bronze scales not unlike miniatures of
the steelyards once common in England, and still used by butchers. Then
there are brass gridirons, dripping-pans, and cups of bronze. There
are also copper pails for cooling wine, and in a few instances bronze
stands for the wine amphoræ. It is almost impossible to point out the
sites which are likely to yield the explorer the best results, neither
is it possible to locate the town where metal-work has been found
to the greatest extent, for all old camping-grounds and towns once
occupied by Roman troops or residential cities during Roman occupation
contain what has been thrown away as useless or has been buried
accidentally.
The collector is delighted with the many little objects which can be
bought, trifling matters when seen separately, but very interesting
when collectively displayed.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--BRONZE SAUCEPAN WITH FOLIATED HANDLE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--EWER OF HAMMERED COPPER.]
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--LAMP OF CAST BRONZE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--LAMP OF BRASS INLAID WITH COPPER.]
Interesting Toilet Requisites.
During excavations on the site of the National Safe Deposit Company's
premises in Walbrook quite a number of beautifully formed small
objects were found. Indeed, such curios (by no means uncommonly met
with on sale in curio shops) are very numerous, and include toilet
implements, armlets of twisted copper wire, finger rings of bronze,
dress fasteners, pins, fibulæ, tweezers, key rings, bodkins, and
needles.
The looking-glass is of course a modern invention, but Greek and Roman
maidens learned the art of finishing their toilet in the reflective
"glass" of the shining pool, and later by the aid of mirrors of highly
polished metal made by the craftsmen of Rome; some of which have been
preserved. The surface to which this reflective polish was given was
of copper alloyed with antimony and lead. Such mirrors were sometimes
hung to the girdle, a custom not unknown to Shakespeare, who frequently
makes mention of it.
Artificial Lighting.
Artificial light has been a necessity to man ever since primeval days.
The whole story of the discovery of fire-making and the light it gave
is an enchanting romance. The contrivances for procuring and lighting
a fire and for the betterment of artificial light have been many,
and throughout the ages they have received perhaps greater attention
by the inventor than any other requirement of the race. Of all the
curios of the period under review none have been more prolific than
those associated with artificial light. The lamps of ancient Rome, of
beautiful bronze and brass, contrasted with the clay or terra-cotta
lamps of cruder forms which have been found in such quantities. Their
chased patterns were often modelled on the earlier Greek vases, so many
of which are to be seen in the British Museum among the rarities of the
metal collector. No collection of copper and brass would be complete
without examples of the arts and crafts of Rome, so beautifully
exemplified in the charming lamps to be carried in the hand, to stand
on pedestals, and for suspension from the ceiling. There was something
in their ornamentation which carried them beyond the works of the
utilitarian maker. A celebrated historian, referring to the lights
of ancient Rome, speaks of their matchless grace and simplicity, and
says, "They afford traces of decoration showing an elevation in the
ornamentation of common articles of every-day use." The Roman lamp of
bronze was carried everywhere the conquering armies went, and in Roman
settlements in France, Italy, and in Northern Africa, as well as in
Britain, the native artificers in copper and bronze saw in them designs
to be imitated; and after the Empire of Rome had fallen, the models
which emanated from the Imperial city served as the designs for lamps
in many countries centuries afterwards. The illustrations shown in
Figs. 9 and 10 represent bronze lamps--the former, Fig. 9, is cast, and
is an early example; Fig. 10, however, is of a later period, and it is
made of brass inlaid with copper. The examples found in this and other
countries may be divided into two groups, those distinctly Roman and
of early date and those of the days when the Christian religion was
recognized by the Emperors and the State. These latter are known by the
decorations upon them.
Statues and Monuments.
Reference has already been made to the beautiful statuettes of Greece.
There are others, to many grand in their conceptions, the work of Roman
modellers, many representing Apollo, Hercules, Mars, and Mercury having
been found. In the British Museum there are some wonderfully striking
heads of several of the Emperors, and other men whose portraits
have been handed on to us in monuments of stone, and upon coins and
medallions, the die-sinkers of which so faithfully portrayed the men
they pictured. The names of many of the most famous artists are known,
and collectors rejoice over fresh examples of their handiwork. It is,
however, the general characteristics of the Roman worker in metal
as a whole that connoisseurs recognize and appreciate, and the true
connoisseur is always searching for some greater artist's work than he
has hitherto been familiar with. He is on the look-out for the very
best among art treasures.
An amusing story has been told of a modern manufacturer who was very
fond of inserting in his advertisements paragraphs calling attention
to his modern works of art, which he said were "acknowledged by
connoisseurs to be the best." "Father," said his little boy one day,
"what do you mean by a connoisseur?" "A connoisseur, my boy," answered
the manufacturer of copper goods, "is an eminent authority--an
authority, in short, who admits that _our_ goods are the best."
We are apt to look upon the beautiful brass grilles and copper
lock-plates of mediæval days as the earliest examples of these metals
in lock-making, the earliest locks found on old doors and muniment
chests being chiefly of iron. But when we go back to still earlier
times and examine the relics of Roman London, we find key-rings and
keys of bronze, some very ornamental, too. One beautiful little key
found near All Hallows Church has a bow terminating in a small spur.
Another bronze key found near St. Swithin's, in Cannon Street, has a
ridged annular bow, with a short square stem. Other keys are equally
decorative; the locks, too, are in many instances ornamental, although
in design and workmanship they fall short of the pinnacle of fame
reached by the lockmakers in later Gothic times.
Romano-British Art.
Many readers in searching for curios of the Romano-British period
in this country will recall the fact that the ancient Britons
possessed bronze; and doubtless we should be doing an injustice to
the more enlightened dwellers in Britain before Roman occupation, and
contemporary with it, if we did not admit that possibly some of the
relics of that period now dubbed Roman belonged to those more entitled
to our regard, for Albion was their native land.
On the Thames Embankment, facing the Houses of Parliament, there is
that famous bronze group perpetuating the memory of the British Queen
Boadicea in her war chariot. The Romans made their famous paved roads
as they pushed their outposts and line of camps farther north and west.
The wheels of many British war chariots were made of, or hooped with,
brass, and possibly the brass or bronze wheels, such as are represented
in that group on the Embankment once covered by the flowing river, may
have rattled over the roads made by the conquerors; such chariots, with
their appointments of bronze and ornamental horse trappings, showed
much skill in their fashioning. A poet gives voice to their use in the
following lines:
"On the bright axle turns the bidden wheel
Of sounding brass, the polish'd axle steel."
A Well Staged Exhibit.
It is scarcely necessary to remind readers that there is a peculiar
attraction in a well staged exhibit--public or private. A case of Roman
and still earlier bronzes may be made attractive by an arrangement
giving a gradation of subject and inclusive of the plainer types with
the more delicately formed ornamental trinkets. A very fine example
of how to arrange such a collection is seen in one of the rooms
in Stafford House, the new home of the London Museum. The entire
collection, representative of various periods of the Roman occupation
of Britain, so carefully mounted, is worthy of close inspection. It
includes many rare pieces, one being an early Roman lamp, which was
found in Greenwich and is said to be unique among London curios.
Indeed, it is probable that none so fine, nor of exactly the same
design, has been found in England. This we are able to reproduce (see
Fig. 50). The newly arranged London Museum is likely to be a rendezvous
of Londoners and their friends from the country, for not only are there
early antiquities in copper and brass, but many fascinating curios
arranged in historical sequence, showing the development in metal-work
as it was fashioned by London smiths and founders, and the progress
made by other craftsmen as kings and queens came and went and the
London as we know it to-day was being evolved.
V
MEDIÆVAL
ANTIQUITIES
CHAPTER V
MEDIÆVAL ANTIQUITIES
Domestic brasswork--Metal signs and badges--Ornamental
trinkets--Arms and armour.
As the collector of copper and brass assembles his treasures and
arranges them according to the different periods in which they were
made, it is always the household utensils which predominate. As
time goes on their number increases and the ornamental blends with
the useful; but the increase in the variety is only in proportion
to the gradual extension of the number of other household curios of
contemporary dates.
The period under review, for convenience termed mediæval, extends in
actual fact from the rougher days of the Norman sovereigns to those
when bluff King Hal held court and Elizabeth made so many "grand tours"
among the country seats of her people. At the beginning of this period
the furniture of even the nobility and wealthy ecclesiastics was very
scanty, and when the proud barons moved from one castle to another they
carried with them all their household furnishings, even their more
treasured culinary utensils of copper and brass. They stowed them away
along with their jewels and their other belongings in oak coffers,
which in the earliest days were made so that they could be carried on
poles by retainers.
"In oaken coffers I have stuffed my crowns,
In cypress chests my arras counterpoints,
Pewter and brass, and all things that belong
To house or housekeeping."
_The Taming of the Shrew._
Domestic Brasswork.
In mediæval days the metal-work was "home made," that is to say, it
was the work of retainers and those who were employed upon an estate.
The old smiths not only worked in iron but wrought copper and brass,
and the founders were building up a reputation; and their chief men
were laying down rules for the guidance of the craftsmen. The influence
exerted upon the metal-work of this country by the trade guilds of
London is referred to in Chapter VI. In their prosperity no doubt the
kitchens of the once powerful guilds were filled with cooking vessels
indicative of the feasts held by the freemen of the different crafts.
Some may say there are still evidences of such feasts; but most of the
cooking vessels of early days perished in the Great Fire, although
doubtless there are relics of a later period to be found in the
kitchens and cellars of the Guildhall and some of the lesser halls.
Some of the companies, if they have lost their treasures, still possess
records which are helpful to the antiquary, and we naturally turn
to the parchments and books of the Worshipful Company of Founders,
and there, appropriately enough, it is written that at one time they
had jurisdiction over the manufacture of candlesticks, buckles,
spurs, stirrups, straps, lavers, pots, ewers, and basins of brass and
latten. The mark of the mystery was early made a ewer, a ewer and two
candlesticks being given to the Founders in 1590, when they obtained a
grant of arms; the motto they adopted was: "God is the only Founder."
The foundries of the craftsmen, workers, and casters of brass, latten,
and kindred alloys in London were chiefly in and near Lothbury, among
their most noted products being candlesticks and spice mortars--two
staples which have become nearly obsolete, although none would say that
the founding of metal is as yet an obsolete craft. Thus it is change
and development are seen everywhere in production. The chief privileges
of the Founders have gone, although they still take some little part
in the stamping of weights and measures; but that, too, has become a
Government duty. The Founders have some interesting pieces of plate,
but not much copper. Their best example of their own craft is the
ancient poor-box of copper which was presented to the Company by Mr.
Stephen Pilchard in 1653, the year in which he was Upper Warden.
The feeding of man has always been the first duty of those who took
charge of domestic arrangements, and we can readily understand that
the caldron or cooking-pot was the earliest vessel. Its use may be
regarded as universal, for it is found to have existed everywhere
(see Chapter VIII). In mediæval England the feasting of the poor and
the feeding of scores of retainers in the baronial halls and in the
great ecclesiastical buildings, where hospitality and charity were
rife, necessitated immense boiling-pots. Some of those referred to
under "Domestic Utensils" (Chapter VIII) seem to some too large for
practical purposes. It may, however, be pointed out that there are
many large cooking-pots in use even at the present time; and copper
caldrons of large size are used in hospitals and infirmaries. Quite
recently there appeared in the public Press photographs of a well-known
Countess making an Irish stew at Liberty Hall, Dublin, stirring round
the contents with a wooden stirrer and lading out bowlfuls of soup with
a metal scoop; it was food for the sufferers through the strike at that
time going on in Dublin. It is thus that the poor of all ages have been
fed. As kitchen operations were confined to lesser areas and smaller
vessels were needed by individual families when patriarchal systems
were broken up, they were but replicas in miniature of the larger
caldrons and vessels which had become too large.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--BRASS AQUAMANILE (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY).
(_In the British Museum._)]
It is wisely said, "Fingers were made before spoons," a fact true
enough, but as time went on and the habits and customs of men and women
became less rough, although as yet hardly refined, a need sprang up for
utensils for personal use. Hitherto cooking forks and spoons were used
in the kitchen, but the hunting-knife mostly served at table. It is
true spoons were in use in very early times and even by the common
people. At first of iron or wood, afterwards made of brass and latten,
they are found wherever there are remains of mediæval dwellings. A
Scotchman is said to have declared that "the discovery of hot broth was
an epoch in the evolution of man, and that as the ladle is to the pot
so is the spoon to the bowl."
Such brass ewers and basins, known as aquamaniles, mostly of bronze
(one of Continental make is illustrated in Fig. 11) were used for the
purpose of washing the hands, over which the water was poured. They
were used in connection with bowls. Another type of laving ewer is
that of the gemellions, made in pairs, one portion being held under
a person's hands while water was poured out of the spouted bowl.
Gemellions seem to have been the somewhat clumsy prototypes of the more
convenient jug and bowl of later days. The use of ewers and basin was
very necessary both before and after meals when knives and spoons were
little used and it was no uncommon thing for two persons to eat out of
one dish.
In mediæval days even domestic articles were frequently decorated, for
English and European metal-workers had caught the figure work of the
Oriental school. Their ornament took the form of hunting and battle
scenes. Sometimes patrons were eulogized, and flattering inscriptions
covered the objects wrought for them by their servile dependents. In
Fig. 18 there is shown a bucket or bath vessel now in the Victoria
and Albert Museum, rather an unusual piece of early metal-work and an
interesting mediæval curio. Not long ago a similar bucket was dug up
in the neighbourhood of Weybridge.
We are apt to regard with disdain what we term the grandmotherly
legislation which tampers with the liberty of the subject. The present
day, however, is not alone remarkable for regulations by which the home
life of the nation is controlled. The Norman law which ordered "lights
out" when curfew rang cut short the "overtime" of the worker of that
day. So stringent was the enforcement of that law that not a glimmer of
light must be seen after the appointed time. To darken or extinguish
the dying fire on the hearth the _couvre de feu_ became a feature. Such
covers of well authenticated antiquity are rare; the one illustrated in
Fig. 12 is a well-preserved example now in the Bolton Museum.
Metal Signs and Badges.
In the early days when serfdom had not long ceased and the retainers of
the nobles had not won their full freedom or independence, signs and
symbols of their allegiance to some chief or overlord were plentiful.
The Crusaders brought back with them signs, amulets, and various
objects which they wore with more or less superstitious belief. The
pilgrims to the most noted shrines in this country followed suit, and
all these various purposes and mediæval customs have furnished the
curio-hunter with many delightful reminders of the "good old days"
when superstition and almost idolatry were rife. Old Father Thames has
preserved many of them for centuries, and twentieth-century collectors
are richer thereby.
In the Guildhall Museum in London there is a very complete and
representative collection of pilgrims' signs. Although many of them
are made of a soft metal, there are others of good copper and brass.
At one time they must have been very plentiful, for very prolific
have the finds been in the neighbourhood of London Bridge and in and
around Southwark. These signs or badges were secured and worn by the
pilgrims who set out to the chief shrines, notably that of St. Thomas
à Becket at Canterbury. Chaucer in his _Canterbury Tales_ has told
that there were many traders in pilgrim signs in Canterbury city, so
that all were enabled to possess themselves of such symbols, many of
which they threw upon the shrine, and others retained them as talismans
against danger on the return journey. The pilgrims wore a variety of
emblems--the more devout, it is said, preferred the cross; others
carried with them on their journey little metal figures of St. George,
St. Katherine, St. Christopher, or other saint with his or her symbol.
St. Agnes was represented by a lamb, St. John by an eagle, and St.
Dorothy by a basket of fruit. Perhaps the most favoured sign purchased
in Canterbury was an equestrian figure of St. Thomas à Becket. Some
of the emblems were worn as protectors against evil, and such signs
were almost invariably on horse trappings; indeed, such amulets have
been perpetuated almost up to the present day. There are several
circular discs in the museum referred to, said to date from the
twelfth century, upon these are embossed two horned animals; another
badge of a little later date, in copper, has upon it a shield of arms
surrounded by three mythical dragons; it was found in Ludgate Hill. Yet
another on which is a shield charged with seven stars, said to be of
fourteenth-century workmanship, was found some time ago on the site of
the old General Post Office in St Martin's-le-Grand.
The retainers of noblemen wore private badges by which they were known;
these were mostly of brass or bronze, and sometimes they were gilded.
They were frequently worn when on a journey as a passport. Such badges
in the form of circles and lozenges were usually furnished with a loop
for suspension, and became well known. They served a similar purpose to
the distinctive livery of later days.
Ornamental Trinkets.
The household ornaments, trinkets, and little articles of personal
adornment which have been preserved tell not only of female vanity but
of masculine love of ornament. It would appear that the use of bronze
lingered on for centuries after it had nominally been displaced by
brass; especially was that the case in decorative objects and metal
ornament. The metals known as bronze, copper, and brass are, however,
much intermixed in their use.
The objects which can be collected include brooches, rings, pins,
needles, bodkins, and thimbles of brass. Buckles are very numerous,
and varied in form; some are heart-shaped, others have ends cut out to
form a trefoil and are decorated with a pierced fleur-de-lis. The story
of the pin, the smallest and yet the most used metal object preserved,
is very interesting. At one time it was made by hand from brass wire,
the head being twisted round and round until it had the appearance of
a solid knob. The Pinners were in years gone by an important guild,
and in 1376 returned two men to the Common Council of London. In the
reign of Henry VII an Act of Parliament was passed compelling the
Pinners to solder fast to the shank the head of the pin, and directing
that the pin itself should be "smooth, rounded, filed, and sharpened."
Very laborious indeed must have been the making of pins in those days.
There were pins, however, of an earlier date, for it is recorded that
on one occasion when the men of Athens had gone out to battle only one
returned. He was met by an infuriated mob of women, who were so enraged
at the loss of their husbands that Herodotus tells us they pulled the
pins out from their garments and stabbed him to death. There were
bronze pins in Rome, too, and we are told that even the safety-pin of
to-day is by no means new, for among the collectable objects in brass
are prehistoric safety-pins.
Half a century ago, when little girls went to school they carried with
them the inevitable pin poppet, some of which receptacles for pins and
other similar sundries were of wood, but many were brass; some met
with among old metal curios are quite handsomely decorated. Another
indispensable object is the button, so many of which are of metal, many
decorative, some inscribed, and others ornamented with portraits. There
are little brass sleeve-links, worn in Tudor days, to be met with, and
some curious brass studs which were worn by men in the shirt fronts
of the early Georgian period. There are clasps of purses and books
and casket mounts of brass, some of which date back to the fifteenth
century. The older mounts of purses, so-called, would be more correctly
described as the mounts of gipcieres; the gipciere was a kind of pouch
formerly worn at the girdle; the name is also spelled _gipser_:
"A _gipser_ all of silk
Hung at his girdle white as morné silk."
Chaucer.
Sometimes the mounts were inscribed with mottoes; one found in Brooks'
Wharf, London, believed to be of fourteenth-century workmanship, is
inscribed "CREATOREM CELI ET TERRE ET IN IESVM." Other objects in brass
are girdle ends, some of which are shaped like acorns and others are
of ivy-leaf design. Among ornamental bronzes which can be worn, and
in larger sizes hung upon the wall, there are plaques, many of the
earliest being copied from antique gems. Plaquettes in bronze were
common in the sixteenth century.
Arms and Armour.
A volume might well be taken up with describing mediæval arms and
armour. It is true iron and steel are the chief metals in the making
of weapons, but brass and bronze are closely allied with some of the
armaments of war. Many of the small mediæval cannon were of brass, and
not a few of the guns, or "hand cannon," were of that metal.
In the days of Elizabeth the musketeer carried, in addition to an
unwieldy weapon, his flask of powder, touch-box, and burning match. The
match-box was a tube of copper pierced with small holes, and in it the
lighted match could be conveyed safely. The powder-horn was at first
of real horn, but in time it became a copper flask. Many of the old
flasks were exceedingly ornate, and were often ornamented with hunting
scenes worked up in repoussé on the copper sides. The spur-makers
were important craftsmen in early days, and under the name of the
Guild of Loriners ranked with the City companies. It is true that
the spur rowels of six, eight, or even twelve points were generally
of iron, but the collector of metal finds many interesting specimens
made entirely of brass. One pair of spurs in the reign of Henry VIII
consist of fourteen brass points, the neck of the rowel being shaped
like a peacock and embossed with brass rosettes. Our finest collection
of armour and of ceremonial metal-work--that splendid collection which
dates from quite early times, finding its greatest strength and massive
grandeur in late mediæval days and its artistic ornament in the richly
damascened armour of lesser weight of the Stuarts--is rightly housed in
that greatest of English strongholds, the Tower of London. It is there
that the antiquary and the archæologist love to wander, and in the
vast recesses of those dungeons and prison-like towers read history.
There is an abundance of metal everywhere. Guns and cannon and mortars
of historic fame lie about in the open. The Bloody Tower, nearly
opposite the Traitors' Gate, the Middle Tower, the Byward Tower, and
many others of equal interest may be seen. To some the Regalia with its
crowns, swords, and sceptres of state, ampulla, spoon, salt-cellars,
maces, and orders of merit, are the greatest attraction. The curio
collector, however, finds his way to the museum and admires and perhaps
envies the quaint and curious guns, powder-horns, and trophies of war.
He is in the midst of the England of the Middle Ages, with its jousts
and tournaments, shut out by the thick walls of the White Tower from
the hurry and bustle of the traffic and commerce of the twentieth
century.
The magnificent armour in Hertford House--the Wallace collection--is a
delight to those who love to see in arms and armour the perfection of
beauty of ornament and decoration. There are splendid suits which look
as bright as the day when they were new. The half-suit of armour of
Italian workmanship made for Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara, inlaid and
damascened with gold and silver, is said to be the finest in Europe.
The staging of this splendid collection was carried out by Mr. Guy
Laking, the Keeper of the King's Armour and Custodian of the London
Museum.
A fitting conclusion to this chapter is, surely, a tribute to the
armourers and founders and smiths of the Middle Ages, who worked so
conscientiously and made their work lasting. It has retained its beauty
and much of its ancient finish, notwithstanding atmospheric influences;
indeed, some of it gained added beauty by oxidation.
VI
LATER
METAL-WORK
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--BRASS _COUVRE DE FEU_, A RARE EARLY PIECE.]
(_In the Chadwick Museum, Bolton._)
CHAPTER VI
LATER METAL-WORK
The influence of the Guilds--Architectural metal-work--The door
knocker--Interior metal-work.
In all branches of art there seems to be a break between the earlier
mediæval and the later art which was the outcome to some extent of the
great Renaissance or revival which swept over the Continent of Europe
and brought with it such a change in everything appertaining to the
beautiful. Whilst mediæval metal-workers produced grand examples full
of design and ornament, influenced by the touch with Eastern nations
which the Crusaders gave them, the later smiths and founders gradually
evolved styles of their own, more English to our ideas. The Renaissance
with its wealth of ornament did not so much apply to copper and brass
as it did to the metal-work of the smith who forged that which was
beautiful and ornate in iron on his anvil. Yet some of those florid
designs were reproduced by the brassfounder.
After the Restoration the art treasures which had been destroyed
during the Commonwealth were replaced, as evidenced by the Regalia in
the Tower, where there is so much silver-gilt and gold plate which
represents the more decorative art of that period. In that famous
collection of national Regalia, symbols of office, and vessels used on
rare occasions, there is the alms-dish used for the distribution of the
King's doles on Maundy Thursday. It bears the Royal cipher of William
and Mary, and contrasts with the other plate in that it is remarkably
plain, typical in its decoration with the earlier metal-work of the
days of Queen Anne and those years which immediately followed her
reign. When we walk through some of the once select, although now not
much used, thoroughfares in London and admire the stately old houses
which may be seen still in some of the Metropolitan squares, especially
in the open thoroughfare known as Queen Anne's Gate, we are inclined
to wonder whether after all "Queen Anne is dead." That hackneyed
expression used in a humorous sense at times is certainly not true in
so far as the remarkable developments in building operations and the
characteristic decorations of Queen Anne's day live still not only in
the old houses which are still undisturbed, but in the designs and
characteristic patterns which were then adopted by metal-workers and
others, their beauty and grace being recognized to such an extent that
they are to-day among the much copied antiques.
The Influence of the Guilds.
It may be convenient here to refer to the influence of the old City
guilds, which for so long a time acted beneficially, keeping the
craftsmen of their day up to the mark, maintaining the purity of metal
and other materials used, and encouraging and fostering the attainment
of the highest skill in artistic workmanship.
The City Companies have long ceased to exercise active control over
individual craftsmen; some would say that trade unions have taken their
place, and others would point to the altered conditions of manufacture
and of trade which exist now. None can deny, however, that the
influence of those early pioneers is still felt, and the basis which
they laid down as the art of the later period of English craftsmanship,
amongst which we find the greater number of our collectable curios,
remains to-day the foundation on which modern developments are built
up. The Braziers' Company was once an important guild in connection
with metal. Many years ago the Braziers joined the Armourers, claiming,
however, a monopoly of all copper and brasswork. By an Authority
received from James II the members of the Braziers' Company were
granted the right to search and prove all copper and brasswork wrought
with a hammer within the City of London. It is said that their Charter
is still in force, although their rights and privileges are now
sinecures. Few members of the old City companies have now any direct
connection with the crafts with which their names are associated. They
exist, however, and use some of the funds at their disposal for the
encouragement and development of the modern crafts which have evolved
from the older foundations with which they were associated. Now and
then important exhibitions are held at which examples of the old and
the new are shown, not always redounding to the credit of the antique.
Some few years ago a very interesting competitive exhibition was held
at Ironmongers' Hall at the instigation of the Worshipful Company of
Founders, by whom prizes were given for artistic metal-work made by
living craftsmen who had studied antique metal-work and had caught
somewhat of the spirit of the old artists in copper and brass. The
competition was keen and many of the exhibits very beautiful. The
winner of the first prize had modelled a goat from life. The second
prize went to the modeller of a calf which was cast in bronze; the
third prize being awarded for a splendidly modelled lioness. In another
division prizes were given for bells; the first prize was awarded to
the founder of a church bell cast in loam, and the second prize to the
designer and founder of a bell on which were exceedingly well-modelled
representations of the Resurrection. In all these examples the
influence of the antique was very conspicuous.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--COPPER VANE ON BILLINGSGATE FISH MARKET.]
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--THE CITY DRAGON AS A WEATHER-VANE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--COPPER COCK VANE, ONE OF FOUR ON SMITHFIELD
MARKET.]
The impetus which has been given to modern copper smithing by the Arts
and Crafts Society through its exhibitions has given quite a different
conception of the art from that which was formerly held. Instead of
being a common craft, working in copper and brass has become one of
the fine arts, a hobby much practised, and the results appreciated.
The late William Morris, at one time President of the Society, and
Walter Crane, artists of no mean order, exerted a great influence on
the work of exhibitors. They have raised the tone of the work done
by amateurs and have been the means of guiding modern workers in these
metals in their efforts to reproduce the antique. Curios and antiques
have served a double purpose associated with crafts such as those under
review, as they give the present-day artist the foundations upon which
to work. They give them evidence of styles and designs which have
prevailed in the past and models upon which to build the art of the
future. Briefly, among the best works of to-day fashioned on the arts
and crafts of the coppersmiths of old are the beautiful metal dogs and
fire-hearth appointments. There are the copper grilles, exquisite in
design and useful for many purposes; copper lanterns and brass lamps
of great variety; copper candlesticks, as well as the beaten metal
candelabra and electroliers, also overmantel panels and beaten copper
roundels, all worthy objects for the craftsmen of the present day to
follow. Perhaps the most elaborate productions based on the antique are
the ecclesiastical brasses of which there is ample choice in the old
brasswork in so many cathedrals and parish churches.
Architectural Metal-Work.
Many years ago architects not only designed the main fabric and
supervised the building of houses, such as those incidentally referred
to being erected in the days of Queen Anne, but they were deeply
interested in the metal-work which acted as exterior ornamentation,
and to a large extent contributed to the beauty of their architectural
designs. After the Great Fire of London swept away so much of the
ancient residential portion of the old city, and took with it the
Gothic and early mediæval churches, there was a great revival in
building operations. Sir Christopher Wren and his fellow-workers put
up more than sixty new churches within the City, and although to some
extent the contour of the old streets was observed, the newer buildings
must have presented an astonishing transformation scene, for from the
few old relics left of London before the Fire we can form some slight
idea of what the City must have looked like then.
The collector of copper and brass takes an interest in metal-work other
than that which he can collect, and admires works of art with which
the architects of olden times enriched their chief buildings. It is
true a considerable portion of the exterior metal-work attached to the
freehold, and of the gates and palasades surrounding the more important
erections, are of iron. There are enough examples of copper-work,
however, to show us the skill of the old craftsmen who worked on years
after the Charter granted by James II to the Braziers' Company had
become a dead letter. One of the most conspicuous and at the same time
decorative examples of copper-work on the loftier buildings is found in
the weather-vanes, which were sometimes gilt, at others painted. In the
earlier days the emblems selected had some bearing on the ownership of
the building or the purposes for which it was to be used. There were
well-known rules, too, governing the type of weather-vane. These are
recognizable in the older examples. They have been neglected, however,
in later years, and the nondescript designs chosen by builders and
modelled according to the whim of the designer at the present day show
little regard for the principles laid down by those early builders and
metal-workers. The etiquette of the weather-vane was simple enough to
observe. On towers, castles, and secular buildings a banner was the
correct device, whereas on ecclesiastical edifices it was the barn-door
fowl. It is said by an old authority that the cock was the emblem of
clerical vigilance, not unassociated with the Biblical story of St.
Peter; others more sceptical as to the origin tell us that the large
tail of the barn-door fowl was well suited to turn truly to the wind.
From these simple principles evolved established rules which ordered
that the coat-of-arms or crest of the owner of a building should be
incorporated in the design of the weather-vane, and on ecclesiastical
buildings the symbol of the patron saint was to take the place of the
weather-cock. As typical examples to be seen in London streets the
weather-vanes on the four turrets of the White Tower of the Tower fly
the Royal Arms in the form of miniature Royal Standards. In Tudor days
the emblem was usually represented sitting on a slender pedestal,
carrying an upright rod on which the flag or decorated plate of metal
which acted as the weather-vane was attached. In the accompanying
illustrations three types of symbolical weather-vanes are shown. Fig.
13 represents one of the copper vanes on Billingsgate Fish Market,
symbolical of the occupation of those who frequent that famous mart. In
Fig. 14 is seen the fabled dragon of the City of London, and in Fig.
15 the copper cock vane, one of the four fixed over Smithfield Market.
There are many ecclesiastical emblems visible during a morning stroll
through the streets of London. Among those readily seen are the key
vane on St. Peter's, Cornhill, and the emblematic gridiron on St.
Lawrence's Church. On St. Michael's Church, Queenhithe, there is a
copper ship, the hull of which holds just one bushel of grain. This
vane is interesting in that the emblem has reference to Queenhithe,
once a famous wharf, rather than to the patron saint. The Hithe is
interesting in its old associations, in that the tolls of that wharf
were given to Queen Eleanor by Henry II as pin money, subsequent
queens of England collecting the revenue for their personal use. The
grasshopper on the Royal Exchange is the same vane that surmounted
the more ancient building which preceded the one now standing. The
grasshopper was the crest of Sir Thomas Gresham, by whom the first
Exchange was built in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This vane, also
of copper, is fully 11 ft. in length, and in miniature was reproduced
as the sign of the banking house in Lombard Street kept by Sir Thomas
Gresham.
The Door Knocker.
The common door knocker, essentially a piece of metal associated to-day
with utilitarian purposes, is not without romantic associations. It has
been a much collected object; easily detached, too, for it is said
that many of the old knockers, or rappers as they were formerly called,
which a few years ago could be bought quite cheaply from the marine
store dealers, had been surreptitiously purloined by thieves, who for
the sake of a few coppers had taken some risk even on a dark night.
Some old houses are still rich in antiquarian door knockers, before
the days of front door bells and electric pushes more a necessity than
they are now. Their use was by no means confined to private houses,
on which they figured in a variety of forms, but among the earlier
examples are ponderous knockers of copper and brass, once regarded
as an essential feature on the great oaken doors of cathedrals and
churches and other important buildings. In the days when the precincts
of certain ecclesiastical edifices were sanctuary, the knocker was
the goal sought by the criminal offender who rushed to obtain the
protection of sanctuary. One of the most famous historical knockers
which has been copied by modern founders, and is seen in collections
of so-called antiques and in use as a modern replica on room doors in
twentieth-century houses, is the famous knocker which did service for
so many years on the Sanctuary door of Durham Cathedral. It is a relic
of great antiquity, having been placed on the door prior to the reign
of King Stephen. Detailing its use as sanctuary a contemporary monk
wrote: "Hereupon their leader violently and repeatedly struck the brass
rings which hang outside the door." According to the "rights" of Durham
all the churchyard and all the circuit thereof was sanctuary for all
manner of men whatever their offences had been. It will be remembered
that in olden time, still perpetuated by its name, there was sanctuary
just outside the Abbey of Westminster, the right being retained even
after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540. There were similar
places of refuge for criminals at the Minories, Whitefriars, and the
old Mint in Southwark. The Durham knocker, around which some interest
centres, was in the form of an animal's head, in which are now two
empty eye-sockets, behind which it is said lights were placed, although
it is probable that they may have been filled with crystal balls.
The brass lion knocker of Brazenose College, Oxford, has won some
notoriety, and has been much copied. The legends regarding its ancient
association with the College, and the migration of the students to
Stamford in 1334, and the subsequent return of the knocker to Oxford
after it had been in other hands for many years, vary, and are not
altogether borne out by proven facts. The brass-nosed knocker does not
appear to have given the name to the College, notwithstanding the very
generally accepted belief. Indeed, according to several authorities
the name originated in the words _bracinum_, malt, and _house_, a
brew-house having been incorporated in the older buildings. The old
knocker, however, is still regarded as historic.
Few collectors of old copper and brass can hope to possess such
historical relics, nor yet are they likely to secure any of the massive
knockers, some of which are to be seen in the Victoria and Albert
Museum at South Kensington. They can, however, readily obtain brass
knockers dating from the reign of Queen Anne, and especially the ornate
knockers of Georgian times, many of them bearing traces of the Adams'
style and of Chippendale influence. Some knockers are peculiar in that
the design is not always apparent. In Fig. 16 is shown a fine knocker
of the much favoured armorial style, and in Fig. 17 is given a drop
knocker in the form of a dolphin. Some of the knockers, repeated in
great numbers in certain districts, are essentially local, such as a
hook and worm pattern, which took its origin in a Sussex village. It
was the invention of a local smith, an admirer of Izaac Walton, who
it is said frequently passed his smithy door on his way to a fishing
stream. Technically described by a fisherman, this knocker is said to
be "a lobworm of buxom proportions dangling from a hook." There are
others, equally interesting examples, to be met with in out-of-the-way
places. One of the advantages of collecting these common objects in
brass and other metals is that they can still be made to serve a useful
purpose on room doors, although the rat-tat of the larger specimens is
sometimes startling.
"Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigued, I said;
Tie up the _knocker_; say I'm sick, I'm dead."
Pope.
Interior Metal-Work.
The collectable brasses (other than domestic kitchen brass and
copper-work which is dealt with in Chapter VIII) belonging to the later
period of art, and chiefly associated with the builder's furnishing
and cabinetmaker's craft, include quite a variety of interesting
objects. In the days before Victorian times, when art almost died
out, the coppersmith and the brazier produced some beautiful objects
for the ornamentation and furnishing of the home, many of which have
been handed down to us, and form valuable additions to a collection of
metal. This period, as it has been already intimated, has been very
much copied, especially just before the artists of the later Edwardian
days struck out new lines and founded a school which has been called
that of the "nouvre art." Now and then there have been attempts to
blend the old with the new, and the collector of the genuine antique
desiring purity of style in his specimens should not neglect any
opportunities he may have of examining and comparing the various
styles. The arrangements for lighting and heating houses were until
quite recently inefficient. There was, however, still greater neglect
in providing for the comfort of the attenders at churches, which were
frequently cold and chilly. Attempts were made by individuals to
remedy this, and among the curios associated with heating purposes are
hand-warmers and foot-warmers. The earlier types of hand-warmers, or
chaufferettes, were spherical metal boxes or balls, in the interior of
which, by an arrangement of chains or rings, a cup containing a red-hot
ball of metal or a piece of charcoal could be retained in an upright
position. These portable warming stoves were also used in many houses
and on many occasions. Reference is made to such warmers in Chapter
XV, where a Dutch foot-warmer is illustrated. It is said that it
was a common practice years ago for a servant man or maid to follow
a lady when attending church, carrying a charcoal burner and placing
it upon the floor at the lady's feet, then gracefully retiring into
some less conspicuous part of the building until the service was over.
In the days when streets were badly lighted lanterns were commonly
hung outside houses and in entrance halls, some reference to the more
portable types being given in Chapter IX.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--BRONZE KNOCKER OF THE ARMORIAL TYPE.]
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--BRASS DROP KNOCKER IN THE FORM OF A DOLPHIN.]
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--BRASS WELL BUCKET.]
The metal-work of the interior, such as lock plates, hinges, and door
knobs, was frequently of brass, and very ornate some of these quaint
old fittings are. Perhaps the most interesting are those which were
much used on the more portable sideboards, corner cupboards, and
chests. It would appear that the extravagance in design reached its
height when Chippendale's influence extended to the metal ornaments
on the furniture, as well as to the scrollwork and carving of the
woodwork. Some of this metal-work gives evidence of Chinese influence,
or as it was then called, Chinese taste, shown in the introduction
of the mandarin and the fakir, Oriental landscapes, palanquins, and
Chinese trees and flowers, even in English metal-work. The collector
of such things finds a wealth of brass in even escutcheons and handle
plates (see Chapter XIX).
There is some very rich brasswork in the frames of the old banner
screens, made of beautiful needlework panels, over which so much time
must have been spent. A remarkably fine banner holder in the Victoria
and Albert Museum is typical of many others. We have only to look round
the house and imagine how it looked a century ago to discover that the
collectable objects of copper and brass, even when domestic utensils
and curios have been removed, included many other objects besides those
referred to which may be secured by careful and persistent search among
the old shops and builders' odds and ends.
VII
CHURCH
BRASSWORK
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--CURIOUS DOUBLE CANDLESTICK.
(_In the Victoria and Albert Museum._)]
CHAPTER VII
CHURCH BRASSWORK
Candlesticks--Altar brasses--Metal architectural
ornament--Memorial brasses.
The admirer of metal-work finds examples of the early brassworker's
art in ecclesiastical edifices. Although in years gone by there
has been spoiliation in many churches, and some of the most valued
objects in sacred buildings have been taken for secular uses, there
are still many treasured relics which are almost unique specimens of
the metal-worker's art. It is a wonder so much has been preserved,
for too enthusiastic authorities have often displaced the old and
substituted newer objects of no antiquarian value. In the past in
restoration work much that would have now been venerated as antique
has been destroyed. The collector cannot be advised to bring pressure
to bear on the ecclesiastical authorities in order that he may obtain
such curios for his museum. Oftentimes the brasses in themselves would
present no special interest. It is rather in their associations that
the antiquary sees much to admire, and to strip brasses from the wall
or memorial tablets from tombs is vandalism and sacrilege which cannot
be encouraged. There is, however, a peculiar beauty in the metal-work
which may be seen and admired in old churches, and the massive grandeur
of grilles, railings, and gallery fronts add to the beauty of such
buildings as a whole. In addition to these architectural brasses there
are many portable antiques, ornate and historical.
Ecclesiastical brasses may be divided into two groups. First, there
are those which have been consecrated to religious purposes, including
the sacred vessels of the altar and the metal symbols used in Divine
worship, and then there are the metal objects which serve the purpose
of ornament and to some extent utility. Among the more decorative
pieces of the first group are processional crosses, many of which are
very beautiful, in some cases being ornamented with precious stones
and enamels. Then there are the crosses on the altar, if anything
still more decorative, for in fashioning them, especially for use in
connection with the old Gothic cathedrals and churches in this country
and on the Continent in mediæval days, the artists concentrated their
best endeavours to produce metal-work worthy of the sacred purpose for
which it was to be used. Some of the bishops' and archbishops' crooks
in the earlier days were made of ivory; then metal-work, richly chased
and jewelled, came into vogue, and latterly some of the crooks are fine
examples of the metal-workers' art.