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[j.d. in the usa]

Part III

Silver and gold
Antiquity
Pre-Mycenaean
Gold and silver and their natural or artificial mixture, called electrum or white gold, were worked in ancient Greece and Italy for personal ornaments, vessels, arrows and weapons, coinage, and inlaid and plated decoration of baser metals. (See goldwork, silverwork.)
Aegean lands were rich in precious metals. The considerable deposits of treasure found in the earliest prehistoric strata on the site of Troy are not likely to be later than 2000 BC. The largest of them, called Priam's Treasure, is a representative collection of jewels and plate. Packed in a large silver cup were gold ornaments consisting of elaborate diadems or pectorals, six bracelets, 60 earrings or hair rings, and nearly 9,000 beads. Trojan vases have bold and simple forms, mostly without ornament; but some are lightly fluted. Many are wrought from single sheets of metal. The characteristic handle is a heavy rolled loop, soldered or rivetted to the body. Bases are sometimes round or pointed, sometimes fitted with separate collars but more often slightly cupped to make a low ring foot. One oddly shaped vessel in gold is an oval bowl or cup with a broad lip at each end and two large roll handles in the middle. The oval body has Sumerian affinities. A plain, spouted bowl in the Louvre is a typical specimen of goldsmith's work from pre-Mycenaean Greece. The scarcity of precious metals points to lack of wealth as prime cause of the artistic backwardness of these regions. Silver seems to have been more plentiful in the Greek islands; but only a few simple vessels, headbands, pins, and rings survive.


Minoan and Mycenaean
A profusion of gold jewelry was found in early Minoan burials at M?khlos and three silver dagger blades in a communal tomb at Kumasa. Silver seals and ornaments of the same age are not uncommon. An elegant silver cup from Gournia belongs to the next epoch (Middle Minoan I, c. 2000 BC). Numerous imitations of its conical and carinated (ridged) form in clay and of its metallic sheen in glazed and painted decoration prove that such vessels were common. Minoan plate and jewelry are amply represented in the wealth of mainland tombs at Mycenae and Vaphio. The vases from Mycenae are made indifferently of silver, gold, and bronze; but drinking cups, small phials, and boxes are generally made only of gold; and jugs are made of silver. Much funeral furniture is gold, notably masks that hid the faces or adorned the coffins of the dead. It has been thought that small gold disks, found in prodigious quantities (700 in one grave), were nailed on wooden coffins; but they may have been sewn on clothes. They are impressed with geometrical designs based on circular and spiral figures, stars and rosettes, and natural forms such as leaves, butterflies, and octopods. Smaller bossed disks bearing similar patterns may be button covers. Models of shrines and other amulets are also made of gold. A splendid piece of plate is a silver counterpart of a black steatite, or soapstone, libation vase from Knossos in the form of a bull's head, with gold horns, a gold rosette on the forehead, and gold-plated muzzle, ears, and eyes. (The gold here and in other Mycenaean plating is not laid on the silver but on inserted copper strips.) (See funerary art.)
Gold cups from Mycenae are of two main types: plain curved or carinated forms related to the silverware and pottery of Troy and embossed conical vessels of the Minoan tradition. Some of the plain pieces, such as the so-called Nestor's cup, have handles ending in animals, which bite the rim or peer into the cup. The embossed ornament consists of vertical and horizontal bands of rosettes and spiral coils and of floral, foliate, marine, and animal figures. The designs are beaten through the walls and are consequently visible on the insides of most of the vessels; but the finest examples of their class, two gold cups from the Vaphio tomb near Sparta, have a plain gold lining that overlaps the embossed sides at the lip. The reliefs on the Vaphio cups represent men handling wild and domesticated cattle among trees in a rocky landscape. (Steatite vases carved with similar pictorial reliefs were evidently made to imitate embossed gold.) The handles show the typical Minoan form: two horizontal plates rivetted to the body at one end and joined at the other by a vertical cylinder.

Cretan and mainland tombs have produced many examples of weapons adorned with gold. Modest ornaments are gold caps on the rivets that join hilt and blade, but the whole hilt is often cased in gold. An example from Mycenae has a cylindrical grip of openwork gold flowers with lapis lazuli in their petals and crystal filling between them; the guard is formed by dragons, similarly inlaid. The most splendid Mycenaean blades are bronze inlaid with gold, electrum, silver, and niello. Here again the work is done on inserted copper plates. This kind of flat inlay seems to have been originally Egyptian; it occurs on daggers from the tomb of Queen Aah-Hotep, which are contemporary with the Mycenaean (c. 1600 BC). Moreover, it is significant that two of the Mycenaean designs have Egyptian subjects (cats hunting ducks among papyrus clumps beside a river in which fish are swimming), though their style is purely Minoan. Another blade bears Minoan warriors fighting lions and lions chasing deer. A dagger from Thira has inlaid ax heads; one from Argos, dolphins; and fragments from the Vaphio tomb show men swimming among flying fish. These are masterpieces of Minoan craftsmanship. In the long, subsequent decadence of the Mycenaean age, however, there seems to have been no invention, and later pieces of goldsmiths' work repeat conventional forms and ornaments.
(E.J.F./M.C.R.)(See Egyptian art.)

Iran
The Persians have been skillful metalworkers since the Achaemenid period (559-330 BC), when they were already acquainted with various techniques such as chasing, embossing, casting, and setting with precious stones. Statuettes of gold and silver are known from the 5th century BC, and vessels of silver and gold from this time take the form of phials, conical cups, vases, and rhyta (drinking cups in the shape of an animal's head). The Oxus treasure in the British Museum and the Susa find in the Louvre, Paris, are good examples of such work. During the Parthian period (247 BC-AD 224), silverwork and goldwork was strongly influenced by Hellenistic predilection for richly decorated bowls and dishes. The zenith of old Iranian metalwork, however, was reached during the Sasanid period (AD 224-651), when craftsmen achieved great variety in shape, decoration, and technique. Drinking vessels (stem cups and cups with handles), ewers, oval dishes, platters, and bowls are the dominant forms; hunting scenes, drinking scenes, and animals are represented in high relief. The patterns were cut out of solid silver or made separately in sheets and then soldered to the vessel. From this time onward cloisonn? enamel was used for jewelry. (B.V.Gy.)(See Achaemenian dynasty.)

Greek and Etruscan
The period of transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age, when Aegean external relations were violently interrupted, was not favourable either to wealth or art; and the only considerable pieces of plate that have come from Greece are embossed and engraved silver bowls made by Phoenicians. Most of them bear elaborate pictorial designs of Egyptian or Assyrian character and are evidently foreign to Greece; but some simpler types, decorated with rows of animals in relief or wrought in the shape of conventional flower bowls, can hardly be distinguished from the first Hellenic products. A severe and elegant silver bowl in the Metropolitan Museum of Art represents the flower type in its finest style. It is cast and chased and probably belongs to the 5th century BC. (See Greek art.)
Silver vases and toilet articles have been found beside the more common bronze in Etruscan tombs; for example, a chased powder box of the 4th century BC in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bronze reliefs of an archaic chariot in the same collection have their opulent counterparts in some hammered silver and electrum fragments in London, Munich, and Perugia. The electrum details are attached with rivets.

Roman
About the 4th century BC, the fashion of ornamenting silver vessels with relief was revived; and this type of work, elaborated in the Hellenistic Age and particularly at Antioch and Alexandria, remained the usual mode of decoration for silver articles until the end of the Roman Empire.
The scholar Pliny the Elder (1st century AD) names Greek silversmiths whose work was valued highly at Rome and laments the disappearance of the art in his own day. He must refer only to its quality, for Roman silverware has been abundantly preserved. Many rich hoards in modern collections were buried by design during the calamitous last centuries of the ancient world; and the most sumptuous, the Boscoreale treasure (mostly in the Louvre), was accidentally saved by the same volcanic catastrophe that destroyed Herculaneum and killed Pliny in AD 79. A slightly smaller hoard found at Hildesheim (now in Berlin) also belongs to the early empire. The acquisition and appreciation of silver plate was a sort of cult in Rome. Technical names for various kinds of reliefs were in common use (emblemata, sigilla, crustae); weights were recorded and compared and ostentatiously exaggerated. Large quantities of bullion came to Rome with the spoils of Greece and Asia in the 2nd century BC; and Pliny says that even in republican times there were more than 150 silver dishes of a hundredweight apiece in the city. (Weights of vessels are often marked on their bases.)

Cups and jugs of Augustan style are usually covered with ornament in high relief. The subjects are very diverse: historical, mythological, and mystic scenes, formal and naturalistic designs of flowers and foliage, graceful studies of animals and birds. Some cups and jugs have conventional fluting, petals, or gadroons (ornamental bands embellished with continuous patterns); Bacchic masks; and embossed or engraved wreaths, gilt or inlaid with niello. Silver and niello inlay was commonly applied to bronze plates. A singular type of silver bowl (patera clipeata) has a central ornament in high relief or even in the round; the ornament frequently contains a portrait bust. In time the ornament was restricted; and later Roman plate is plain with narrow border friezes, small central medallions, and handles embossed in low relief. One of the very few gold pieces that survive, a shallow bowl found at Rennes (Biblioth?que Nationale), is exceedingly elaborate. It measures 10 inches across and weighs 46 ounces. The central medallion and its surrounding frieze contain scenes of a drinking contest between Bacchus and Hercules; between the frieze and the edge of the bowl is a row of 16 gold coins, each framed in a foliate wreath. The coins range from Hadrian to Caracalla. In the same collection are several examples of very large silver plates (clipei or missoria), in which the whole field is embossed with mythological or historical subjects. The largest (called the Shield of Scipio) is 28 inches in diameter and weighs 363 ounces. (E.J.F./M.C.R.)(See Byzantine art.)


Early Christian and Byzantine
The earliest Christian silverwork closely resembles the pagan work of the period in its naturalistic grace, ornament, and use of the traditional techniques of embossing and chasing. Even the subject matter is sometimes classical: the late 4th-century marriage casket of Projecta and Secondus (see photograph), part of the Esquiline treasure found at Rome (British Museum), is decorated with pagan scenes; and only the inscription shows that it was made for a Christian marriage. Among the few pieces with Christian subjects are small Roman cruets (condiment bottles) from Taprain, Scotland (Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, and the British Museum), and a small pyx (casket for the reserved Host) from Pola, Yugoslavia (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna).
Most of the silver of the latter part of the period has been found in the Christian East--in Syria, Egypt, Cyprus, Asia Minor, and Russia--and is mostly "church" plate (chalices, censers, candlesticks, and bowls and dishes probably used to hold the eucharistic bread). Secular plate was also decorated with religious subjects--for example, dishes depicting the life of David (Cyprus Treasure, Cyprus Museum, Nicosia, and Metropolitan Museum); both dishes and vessels were produced with pagan subjects--for example, the Concesti amphora and the Silenus Dish (both in the Hermitage, Leningrad). The figure style is often harder and flatter than previously, characterized by strictly frontal positions and symmetry. The techniques of chasing and embossing still predominated, but abstract patterns and Christian symbols inlaid in niello were used increasingly. The appearance of imperial "control stamps," early forerunners of hallmarks, show most of this material to be of the 6th and 7th centuries. It is not known which cities were important centres of production; but the Eastern capital, Constantinople, must have been foremost among them.

Of work in gold of the earliest Christian period, only personal jewelry has survived; but from the 6th and 7th centuries onward other pieces are also extant. Among the most important of the latter are votive crowns and crosses offered to churches in Spain and Italy by royal patrons. The finest of these pieces are those found in Guarrazar in Toledo Province (National Archaeological Museum, Madrid, and Mus?e de Cluny, Paris), inlaid with garnets and jewels; the cross of King Agilulf (cathedral of Monza, Italy); and a pair of gold book covers inscribed by Queen Theodolinda (cathedral of Monza, Italy). The book covers are set with pearls, gems, and cameos and decorated with gold cloisonn? work inlaid with garnets, a popular style among the Germanic peoples. Inlaid cloisonn? jewelry reached an especially high standard of workmanship in Britain, as is shown by a purse lid, a sword, and jewelry from the cenotaph (monument honouring a dead person whose body lies elsewhere) to a 7th-century East Anglian king discovered at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk (British Museum). Major works in silver and gold were also produced in the northern Hiberno-Saxon school and in the service of the Celtic Church; work in precious metal, such as the buckle on the Moylough belt reliquary and the Ardagh Chalice in the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin, displays a masterly synthesis of the northern arts and humanist Mediterranean tradition.(See Theodelinda.)

Middle Ages
Carolingian and Ottonian
The earliest works of the Carolingian renaissance, made in the last quarter of the 8th century, resemble Hiberno-Saxon art of the 8th century in their abstract treatment of the human figure, their animal ornament, and their use of niello and "chip-carving" technique; examples are the Tassilo Chalice (Kremsm?nster Abbey, Austria) and the Lindau Gospels book cover (Pierpont Morgan Library, New York City). From about 800 onward, however, the influence of the Mediterranean tradition gained strength at Charlemagne's court at Aachen and later spread through the whole empire. Triumphal arches (now lost) given by the Emperor's biographer Einhard to Maastricht cathedral were typical of this movement; miniature versions nine inches (22 centimetres) high of great marble triumphal arches of antiquity, they were embossed in silver with Christian subjects. The bulk of work in precious metals that survives from the Middle Ages is ecclesiastical: golden altars, like that of S. Ambrogio in Milan (c. 850), where scenes from the life of Christ and St. Ambrose are framed by panels of cloisonn? enamel and filigree (openwork); and reliquaries and book covers in gold and silver, set with gems and decorated by embossed figures and scenes, such as the cover of the Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram (c. 870; Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich). These pieces testify to the magnificence of Carolingian work, the techniques of which were to dominate the goldsmith's craft until the 11th century. (See Carolingian Renaissance, Sant'Ambrogio Basilica.)
Patronage throughout this period was mainly in the hands of the emperors and great princes of the church; and the form of liturgical plate and reliquaries, altar crosses, and the like underwent no fundamental change; Ottonian work of the later 10th and 11th centuries can be distinguished from that of the 9th only in the development of style. For example, the larger, more massive figures, with their strict pattern of folds, on the golden altar (c. 1023) given by Henry II to Basel Minster (Mus?e de Cluny, Paris), are markedly different from the nervous, elongated figures of the Carolingian period.


Romanesque
In the 12th century the church supplanted secular rulers as the chief patron of the arts, and the work was carried out in the larger monasteries. Under the direction of such great churchmen as Henry, bishop of Winchester, and Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, near Paris, a new emphasis was given to subject matter and symbolism.

Craftsmen were no longer anonymous; work by Roger of Helmarshausen, Reiner of Huy, Godefroid de Claire (de Huy), Nicholas of Verdun, and others can be identified; and the parts they played as leaders of the great centres of metalwork on the Rhine and the Meuse are recognizable. Their greatest achievement was the development of the brilliant champlev? enamelling, a method that replaced the earlier cloisonn? technique. Gold and silver continued to be used as rich settings for enamels; as the framework of portable altars, or small devotional diptychs or triptychs; for embossed figure work in reliquary shrines; and for liturgical plate.
The masterpieces of the period are great house-shaped shrines made to contain the relics of saints; for example, the shrine of St. Heribert at Deutz (c. 1160) and Nicholas of Verdun's Shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne (c. 1200). In the latter, the figures are almost freestanding, and in their fine, rhythmic draperies and naturalistic movement they approach the new Gothic style.

Gothic
The growing naturalism of the 13th century is notable in the work of Nicholas' follower Hugo d'Oignies, whose reliquary for the rib of St. Peter at Namur (1228) foreshadows the partly crystal reliquaries in which the freestanding relic is exposed to the view of the faithful; it is decorated with Hugo's particularly fine filigree and enriched by naturalistic cutout leaves and little cast animals and birds.
The increasing wealth of the royal courts, of the aristocracy, and, later, of the merchants led to the establishment of secular workshops in the great cities and the foundation of confraternities, or guilds, of goldsmiths and silversmiths, the first being that of Paris in 1202.

As in architecture, monumental sculpture, and ivory carving, the lead held by Germany and the Low Countries during the Romanesque period now passed to France. Architectural forms continued to be the basis of design in precious metal; the silver shrine of St. Taurin at ?vreux (c. 1250), for example, is a Gothic chapel in miniature, with saints under pointed arches, clustered columns, and small turrets. In England, the few pieces that survived the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16th century follow the same architectural pattern. Notable examples are the 14th-century Ramsey Abbey censer and the magnificent crosier made for William of Wykeham (New College, Oxford). Germany first produced work in the Gothic style in the second half of the 14th century with a large Gothic head reliquary of Charlemagne and the splendid "Three-Tower" reliquary, both still at Aachen. In Italy, despite the undercurrent of classical taste, the Gothic style predominated in the 14th century, especially at Siena; it was also probably in Italy around 1280 that basse-taille enamel--a technique in which intaglio relief carving in the metal below its surface is filled with translucent enamel--originated, whence it spread rapidly through the upper Rhine region to France and England. The Parisian school of enamellers predominated in the latter half of the 14th century. For the first time, enough secular plate survives to show that it equalled the ecclesiastical in opulence: two fine pieces are the Royal Gold Cup made in Paris around 1380 (British Museum) and the so-called King John's Cup, probably English work of around 1340 (King's Lynn, Norfolk).

The late Gothic period produced court treasures such as the "Goldenes R?ssel" (1403; Stiftskirche, Alt?tting, West Germany), and the Thorn reliquary (British Museum), both early 15th century. There was also an increased output of secular silver because of the rise of the middle classes; the English mazers (wooden drinking bowls with silver mounts) and the silver spoons with a large variety of finials are examples of this more modest plate. Numerous large reliquaries and altar plate of all kinds were still produced. At the end of the Middle Ages the style of these pieces and of secular plate developed more distinctive national characteristics, strongly influenced by architectural style: in England, by the geometric patterns of the Perpendicular; in Germany, by heavy and bizarre themes of almost Baroque exuberance; and in France, by the fragile elegance of the Flamboyant.

The purity standards of silver became rigorously controlled, and "hallmarking" was enforced; the marking of silver in England, especially, was carefully observed.
(P.E.L.)(See hallmark.)

Islam
The use of gold and silver in Islamic lands was limited because it was forbidden by the Qur'an, and although the prohibition was often ignored, the great value of such objects led to their early destruction and melting down. Islamic jewelry of the early period is therefore of extreme rarity, represented only by a few items, such as buckles and bracelets of the Fatimid and Mongol periods and such pieces as the Gerona silver chest (akin to similar ivory coffers) in Spain and the Berlin silver tankard of the 13th century, with embossed reliefs of Sasanian animal friezes.
(H.Go.)
Renaissance to Modern
16th Century
Italian goldsmiths preceded the rest of Europe in reverting to the style of Roman antiquity; but in the absence of antique goldsmiths' work, vases of marble or bronze had to serve as models. Goldsmiths often worked from very free interpretations of the antique made by artists in other media. Many of these designs but very few of the actual pieces have survived; the most famous is an enamelled gold saltcellar (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) made for Francis I by the celebrated Florentine Benvenuto Cellini. In the second half of the 16th century many gifted Italian and immigrant goldsmiths worked at the court of Cosimo I, grand duke of Tuscany, specializing in vessels of hardstone mounted in enamelled and jewelled gold; their work is well represented in the Museo degli Argenti in the Pitti Palace, Florence, and in the Kunsthistorisches Museum; similar work was done by the Sarachi family in Milan.
Little French goldwork is extant, and most of the surviving material is in the Galerie d'Apollon in the Louvre. Among the most sumptuous pieces are a sardonyx (a type of onyx) and gold ewer, the gold St. Michael's Cup (both at the Kunsthistorisches Museum), and a sardonyx-covered cup in the Louvre, all of which display northern features. The massive plate of the Ordre du Saint-Esprit (Louvre), dating from 1581-82, is of quite individual character; and an enamelled gold helmet and shield of Charles IX (1560-74) in the Louvre have no parallel either for quality or opulence.

In other parts of Europe, goldsmiths clung to Gothic forms until well into the first half of the century, especially in the provincial towns. Immensely rich in ecclesiastical silver, Spain has little early domestic silver; Spanish silversmiths, plater?a, gave their name to the heavily ornamented style of the period, Plateresque. Using precious metal from the New World, goldsmiths such as Enrique and Juan de Arfe produced vast containers for the Host known as custodia. The most important Portuguese work, the Bel?m monstrance, created by Gil Vicente in 1506 for Bel?m Monastery near Lisbon, is still Gothic in style; later, Portugal developed its own style, related to Spanish work but not copied from it. (See Portugal.)

Some of the finest 16th-century goldsmiths' work was executed in Antwerp and elsewhere by such Flemish goldsmiths as Hans of Antwerp, goldsmith to Henry VIII, and Jacopo Delfe, called Biliverti, goldsmith to Cosimo I. The Flemish masters showed particular sympathy for the Mannerist style, derived from Italy but transformed by such native engravers as Cornelis Bos and Cornelis Floris. By about 1580, Dutch goldsmiths had begun to rival the Flemish; the van Vianen family of Utrecht won international renown, especially Adam, who excelled at embossing, and his brother Paulus, who worked in Italy, Munich, and in the workshop of Rudolph II at Prague.

The principal centres in the north were N?rnberg and Augsburg, the former particularly notable for the exuberant Mannerism of the Jamnitzer family, the latter for its ebony caskets with silver-gilt mounts. Many German princes, especially the dukes of Bavaria, maintained their own court workshops. Production was on a vast scale, and great quantities survive. Characteristic German forms are columbine cups (the trial piece for entry into the N?rnberg Goldsmith's Guild) and standing cups such as the Diana Cup by Hans Petzolt.

England is rich in 16th-century secular silver, but church plate was mostly destroyed during the Reformation. The Renaissance style, introduced by the painter Hans Holbein the Younger, who designed vessels for the court, follows that of the Low Countries and Germany. Certain individual forms also were produced, such as standing saltcellars with tiered covers and "steeple" cups, which had a tall finial on the cover.


Baroque
In the first half of the 17th century Dutch goldsmiths, such as the van Vianens and, later, Johannes Lutma the Elder of Amsterdam, developed a fleshy form of ornament known as auricular, which became common in northern Europe, including England--where Christian van Vianen (see photograph) worked as court goldsmith to Charles I--and Germany--where the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) reduced both the quantity and quality of production. After midcentury, bold Dutch floral ornament--usually embossed in thin metal, as though the pieces were for display rather than use--was characteristic and influential. France, however, undoubtedly led fashion with its state workshops at the Gobelins, the refined French acanthus ornament contrasting sharply with the coarser Dutch designs. Since Louis XIV melted the royal plate to pay his troops, no French work of this period remains; but its quality is demonstrated in the work of the Huguenot silversmiths who left France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Mostly provincials, they brought new standards of taste and craftsmanship wherever they settled--particularly in England, where the foremost names of the late 17th and earlier 18th centuries were of French origin: Pierre Harache, Pierre Platel, David Willaume, Simon Pantin, Paul de Lamerie, Paul Crespin, to mention but a few.

Silver furniture, a feature of the state rooms at Versailles, became fashionable among kings and noblemen. It was constructed of silver plates attached to a wooden frame; and each suite contained a dressing table, a looking glass, and a pair of candlestands. In France such furniture did not survive the Revolution; but much remains in England, Denmark, Germany, and Russia.
After the Thirty Years' War, Germany did not regain its eminence; even the enamelled goldwork from the court workshops at Prague and Munich, which became larger and more ostentatious in colour, was inferior in design and finish. In Scandinavia, particularly Sweden, goldsmiths evolved forms of beakers and tankards showing strong German influence. Spanish silver was of massive architectural design, oval champlev? enamelled bosses being set at intervals over the surface of the larger pieces. The few extant Italian pieces suggest that the goldsmiths worked their material with the skill of sculptors.

18th Century
Early 18th-century English work combined functional simplicity with grace of form, while the work of Dutch and German goldsmiths is in a similar style but of less pleasing proportions. The preeminence of the English work, however, is due to the destruction of all but a fraction of French silver of the same period; for what survives is outstanding in originality of design and fineness of finish. The superiority of French work lay in its excellence of design and the high quality of the cast and chased work. Where other goldsmiths worked in embossed metal, the French modelled and cast their ornament and then applied it--a technique that consumed much more of the precious material. (See United Kingdom, embossing, repouss?.)
In France, provincial goldsmiths competed successfully with those of the capital; but in England all the best artists went to London. In the early 1730s the French Rococo style was imported to England and adopted by goldsmiths of both Huguenot and English descent, one of the latter being Thomas Heming, goldsmith to George III. English silver in the 18th-century classical style of Robert and James Adam is of unequal merit owing to the use of industrial methods by some large producers.

In France, Robert Auguste created pieces of great refinement in the Neoclassical style, which was copied in Turin and in Rome, for example, by L. Valadier. A notable workshop was founded in Madrid in 1778 by D. Antonio Mart?nez, who favoured severely classical designs. In both the northern and southern Netherlands, local production followed French precept, but more individuality survived in Germany. In Augsburg, excellent table silver was produced, but more important were the pictorial panels embossed in the highest relief by members of the Thelot family and the silver furniture made by the Billers and the Drentwetts. At Dresden, Augustus II the Strong established under Johann Melchior Dinglinger a court workshop that produced jewels and enamelled goldwork unequalled since the Renaissance; and the gold snuffboxes made by Johann Christian Neuber rivalled those of the Parisian goldsmiths.
(J.F.Ha.)


Colonial America
Silversmithing in the New World in the colonial period is more or less derivative from Europe and England. In North America it was first brought to New England by English craftsmen in the 17th century. The most important centres were Boston, Newport, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Annapolis. Outstanding collections include the Mabel Brady Garvan collection at Yale University and those in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. North American colonial silver is distinguished for its simplicity and graceful forms, copied or adapted from English silver of the period. On the other hand, the colonial silver of Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Bolivia, while European in concept, shows a blending of Iberian designs and forms, with indigenous influences that trace back to pre-Hispanic times. Most of these relics survive in churches as sacramental vessels; but there are some notable private collections.
(D.T.E.)
19th Century
The Napoleonic adventure brought French fashions back into prominence, and the Empire style was widely followed on the Continent. In England the Regency goldsmiths, of whom Paul Storr was the foremost, created their own more robust version of the Empire style. Perhaps the most impressive monument of the period is a service made in Lisbon between 1813 and 1816 and presented to the Duke of Wellington for his liberation of Portugal (now in Apsley House, London).
By midcentury most of the earlier styles had been revived fleetingly and a recognizable Victorian style evolved, based on details drawn from diverse sources. Craftsmanship was at its best, but the design of domestic silver was derivative and selective, while that of presentation pieces strove too consciously for naturalistic effect. In the latter half-century the craft became an industry and the goldsmith a factory worker. In this respect Matthew Boulton was the great pioneer: his Soho manufactory near Birmingham, which dominated the British "toy" industry from the 1770s, produced high-quality steel buckles, buttons, coins, sterling silver, and Sheffield plate, establishing standards of design and of factory management and welfare services that rivalled those of the 20th century. At the end of the 19th century, standards deteriorated, and a second pioneering movement started--the craft revival associated with William Morris and the Art Nouveau style (see below Modern), which led to the production of original pieces, some of highly mannered design. In England the most interesting work was done by the sculptor Sir Alfred Gilbert, who, following the lead of William Burges, the architect and designer, combined silver with ivory and semiprecious stones in romantic confections.
(J.F.Ha.)

Modern
The structure of trade, following the drastic social changes that have taken place since 1914, is similar in all industrial countries. A few artist-craftsmen maintain independent studio workshops, producing commercially unprofitable but artistically significant work. Many of them also teach in art schools or work part-time in factories as industrial designers. Factories using modern equipment--for example, stamping, pressing, spinning, casting, and mechanical polishing--account for nearly all the financial turnover but seldom break new ground artistically. Retail shops buy stock almost entirely from the factories and wholesalers and usually sell it anonymously. Thus, the evolution of style is impeded by the cost of new machinery; by the natural caution of wholesalers and retailers; by the buying public, which prefers precious ornaments to be timeless; and by the consideration that buying is an investment for value rather than for beauty. In consequence, the most lively designs are often those for costume jewelry; and the best modern work usually has been on a tiny scale, making little impact on the trade.
In Paris, designs by Ren? Lalique inspired Art Nouveau, which spread to Belgium and then through Europe and the United States. In Moscow, Peter Carl Faberg? set a superb standard of craftsmanship for small ornaments. In Denmark, Georg Jensen, with Johan Rohde and others, achieved not only an individual Danish style but built up several factories with retail outlets across the world, thus proving that good modern design in silver and jewelry need not be confined to artists' studios; their influence spread throughout Scandinavia. In the 1960s only Germany approached Scandinavia in the number and quality of its artist-craftsmen; WMF (W?rttembergische Metallwarenfabrik) at Geislingen is probably the biggest silverware factory in Europe. In England, notable for the most varied work, the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths has helped a vigorous group of designers to emerge since 1945, including Gerald Benney, Eric Clements, David Mellor, John Donald, and Andrew Grima.
(G.McK.H.)(See silver)

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[j.d. in the usa]

Part IV

Pewter
In its pure form, tin is far from suitable for making into implements because it is too brittle for casting successfully and is not easy to melt down. For this reason it has always been alloyed with certain other metals, mainly lead, in the proportion of 10:1, or copper, alloyed about 100:4, to make what is known as pewter. In medieval Germany, the municipal authorities and the guilds laid down permissible ratios to be used for tin alloys. The authorities also kept an eye on the pewterers and their products to make sure that regulations were adhered to. So that pewter ware could be kept under constant surveillance, a system was worked out whereby every single article had to be marked by one, two, or more hallmarks, or "touches." The first decrees of this kind to be issued in Germany date from the 14th century. In France and England, written sources refer to the pewterer's obligation to hallmark his wares from the end of the 15th century onward. These regulations do not seem to have been followed very closely in practice, for pieces surviving from the period before 1550 rarely have the regulation marks. In the second half of the 16th century, however, which was the golden age of pewter, almost all work began to be clearly marked. This means that modern collectors have a good chance of being able to identify their pieces.
Pewter ware is cast in molds. It is not suitable for chasing or stamping. Molds for simple utensils such as plates, bowls, and jugs were made of clay mixed with calves' hair or of plaster, stone, or slate. From the 16th century, when pewter ware began to be decorated with relief work, molds made of brass or copper were used instead. Relief decoration can be applied by two different methods. The pewterer could either chisel the relief decoration (consisting of little scenes, figures, or decorative motifs) into the copper mold in intaglio, which enabled him to make the details as three-dimensional as he wished; or he could etch it in, which involved covering the plain copper mold with wax, scratching the decoration into it, and then allowing caustic acid to act on it. This second method resulted in a rather flat, two-dimensional relief, which is reminiscent of woodcuts in its sharp outlines and overall style; thus, the technique is known as the "woodcut style." It was common practice in N?rnberg in the last quarter of the 16th century. Pewter utensils (exclusively plates and dishes at this time) were cast in molds prepared in this manner. It was very seldom that decorative motifs were etched straight onto the pewter surface.

Another type of decoration is engraving, which involves cutting decorative motifs, figures, or inscriptions with a burin into the surface of pewter objects. The most expensive and aesthetically important pieces of engraved pewter were produced in the late Gothic period, about 1500. In the 16th and 17th centuries, engraving was common for guild articles; and in the 18th century engraved mottoes, names, dates, and motifs taken from popular art were widely used. The type of strokes used fall into three categories: long, engraved lines; dots set close together to form a pattern; and a technique known in German as Flecheln, in which the straight line made by the burin is broken up into a series of long or short zigzag strokes. The last method makes the design look fuller and broader and also makes it stand out more sharply. This type of decoration first appeared in the 16th century and was very popular in the 17th and 18th centuries.

After they had been cast and then turned on a lathe, many pewter articles, especially plates and dishes, were hammered. The idea was to smooth over the surface of the object and strengthen the material by means of a series of light and regular blows. Sometimes pewterers punched their wares with decorative motifs stamped close together to form a sort of frieze. This technique is known as tooling and is commonly found on bronze and silver articles. Occasionally, pewter pieces were embellished by the addition of brass fittings, such as handles, knobs, spouts, or scroll panels. But pewter ware has rarely been gilded, partly because it is difficult to make a layer of gilding adhere to the surface, partly because there seems little point in covering a material that is attractive in itself with a metal that is ostensibly more precious. This is also why pewter ware has rarely been painted. (See hammering.)

A type of pewter inlay is found on what are known as Lichtenhain tankards. Most of these tankards were made in Lower Franconia and in Th?ringia in the 18th and 19th centuries. They have wooden staves running down them, and their sides are inlaid with decorative motifs and figures made of thin sheets of engraved pewter. In the early 18th century, furniture was also occasionally inlaid with pewter. Such furniture was clearly inspired by the inlay work of the French cabinetmaker Andr?-Charles Boulle.

Antiquity
On the whole, excavations have unearthed little pewter ware dating from antiquity, not only because it has tended to perish over the years but presumably also because it was not nearly as common as glass, bronze, silver, or clay. Excavations on the Esqueline Hill and finds from the Tiber River have produced some small pewter statuettes of divinities that may well be votive offerings. Miniature versions of household articles such as amphorae, oil lamps, and pieces of furniture were found in graves.
A number of pewter ampullae (flasks with a globular body and two handles) with inscriptions or highly stylized images or symbols date from the Early Christian period. They were sold to pilgrims and were used to hold water from the Jordan River, consecrated water, or oil. (Similar pouch-shaped ampullae reappeared in France in the 14th and 15th centuries; but unlike the early Christian examples, they are ornamented with abstract motifs rather than figure decoration.)

Middle Ages
Besides the ampullae, hundreds and thousands of pilgrim badges were sold to devout visitors to places of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages. These little plaques and agraffes (hat badges) were generally miniature versions of religious images worshipped at the place where they were on sale. A number of these Italian, English, French, and German pilgrim badges, dating from the 13th to the 16th century, have survived.
Instead of jewelry made of gold, silver, or precious stones, the less wealthy people of the Middle Ages wore pewter badges sewn onto their clothes or hats. The badges often took the form of amulets.

Because pewter was highly prized in all periods, damaged or old-fashioned utensils were melted down over and over again to make new ones. Thus, the earliest surviving functional objects and vessels made of pewter date from the Gothic era, though a few written sources refer to pewter being used earlier than this. Most of these documents are concerned with the question of whether communion chalices should be made of anything other than gold or silver. Pewter Communion chalices were permitted in certain periods and prohibited in others, and the church never managed to draw up an absolute ruling that applied to all religious communities.

Some of the finest and most important pewter pieces ever cast were made in Silesia in about 1500. Large guild flagons of a characteristic polygonal design, only 11 of them have been preserved. Their facetted surfaces are engraved with figures of saints surrounded by interlaced foliage scrolls, arches, arcades, and other late Gothic decorative motifs. Hidden among these motifs, one sometimes finds secular scenes, some of which are downright lewd. Pewterers in the neighbouring districts of Moravia and Bohemia also made guild flagons; but theirs were cylindrical, with raised horizontal bands. The areas between the bands were generally decorated with friezelike inscriptions made up of Gothic or Gothic-style characters.

The 15th century saw the emergence of a jug set on a slender stem, easily recognizable by its disk-shaped base, surmounted by another slender stem; the main body of the vessel is generally spherical and has a long, thin neck. The municipal authorities often possessed a set of six or 12 flagons of this kind. They came back into fashion in the 17th century and were very widely used, as they had been at the beginning of the 15th century. Unfortunately, only a very few have survived from the earlier periods.

Another early type of vessel belongs to a group known as Hanseatic tankards. These tankards have a heavy-looking, potbellied body set on a shallow circular base and a slightly convex lid. They were used in the coastal regions of Germany--that is, along the North Sea and Baltic coasts--and also in the Low Countries and Scandinavia. These regions comprise the area dominated by the Hanseatic League in the Middle Ages, hence the name of the tankards. Other regions of Europe were evolving their own special types of vessels for beer and wine, which, with a few modifications, remained standard for centuries. Thus, it is a very simple matter to distinguish between baluster jugs from London and pichets from Paris or between wine flagons from Switzerland and those made in the Low Countries, Burgundy, the Main regions of Franconia, southern Germany, and the Rhineland. The type of a baluster jug made in the region around Frankfurt-am-Oder and in Brandenburg in northeastern Germany is particularly elegant and distinguished looking. The few jugs of this type that have survived date from about 1500.

In all of the districts bordering the Rhine, vessels with flat lenticular (the shape of a double-convex lens) bodies are relatively common. They were used as canteens--sometimes as tankards, in which case they had a base that acted as a stand.

16th Century to Modern
The Baroque era saw the production of many different types of drinking and pouring vessels, often made of pewter. The guilds, for instance, commissioned drinking vessels in the shape of larger than life-size versions of the tools of their trade or their coats of arms. Another type of vessel was called the Welcome, a drinking vessel that was handed around as a form of greeting or when a toast was being drunk. The body of these vessels was generally cylindrical or potbellied, with a lid and a short shaft set on a circular base.
Far fewer plain everyday plates have survived from the 15th and 16th centuries than drinking vessels and containers of the same period. The earliest pewter plates and bowls to have survived in any quantity date from the 17th century.

In the last half of the 16th century two places in Europe evolved quite independently, though simultaneously, a new technique for casting pewter. The product was a type of relief-decorated ware known as "display pewter" (Edelzinn), and it gave a new and brilliant impetus to the trade. The first examples were made between 1560 and 1570, and the main centres of production were N?rnberg and Lyon. In the beginning the technique used was not the same in both towns. Whereas in France, relief pewter was cast in engraved brass molds worked with a burin, in N?rnberg etched molds were used. This suggests that the two towns were not influenced by each other in any way. Later on, however, N?rnberg pewterers were strongly influenced by the work of a celebrated French pewterer, Fran?ois Briot, who was active in Montbeliard, in the county of W?rttemberg.

The first master pewterer documented to have made relief pieces in Lyon is Roland Greffet, between 1528 and 1568. One can assume that it was he who invented this type of work. A school producing tankards and dishes with relief decoration soon grew up in Lyon. The most common decorative motif was an arabesque, which was used in a variety of ways and can be thought of as the leitmotif for the work of this group of artists. The master of relief pewter was Fran?ois Briot. His most famous piece is the Temperantia Dish, which takes its name from the allegorical figure of Temperance or Temperantia that appears in the centre of it. It dates from 1585-90.

Pewter with etched relief decoration was made by N?rnberg pewterers from the last third of the 16th century onward. The earliest piece made by Nicholas Horchhaimer, bearing the date 1567, is a dish cast in an etched mold with an allegorical figure representing Fame, or Fama, in the centre and historical scenes or incidents from classical mythology around the edge. Other large dishes made by Horchhaimer and his contemporary Albrecht Preissensin are again decorated with themes from classical antiquity or sometimes with biblical scenes; for smaller plates they kept to abstract decoration.

The use of etched molds did not remain fashionable in N?rnberg for long, and toward the end of the 16th century engraved molds were being used here as well. The work of Fran?ois Briot was copied by Caspar Enderlein, who modelled his own Temperantia Dish directly on Briot's. The decoration on the ewer that went with it was modelled on Briot's Mars Dish and on a piece known as the Suzannah Dish, which is also attributed to Briot.

In the second quarter of the 17th century, smaller relief plates superseded the big dishes and jugs made in N?rnberg. The Mannerist allegories that had been in favour completely disappeared, to be replaced by scenes from the Old and New Testaments, equestrian portraits of the German emperors with the electors round the edge, and luxuriant floral decorations. These plates are no more than about seven inches (18 centimetres) in diameter and are generally flat and disk-shaped. The molds were no longer made by the pewterers themselves but by professional mold cutters, who occasionally added their own monograms. Since molds were often sold by one workshop to another and then to another, one sometimes finds plates cast in the same mold but with different touches. Small decorative plates of this type were so popular that they continued to be made as late as the 18th century. There are no less than nine different models for a plate with an equestrian portrait of Ferdinand III of the House of Habsburg, who was crowned emperor of Germany in N?rnberg in 1637. Similar plates depicting Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, the Emperor of Turkey, and Duke Eberhard im Bart of W?rttemberg were also produced.

Few places, apart from N?rnberg and France, had a flourishing trade in relief pewter. A few master pewterers in Saxony did execute relief decoration, however, mainly on jugs; they adapted their motifs from lead or bronze plaquettes made in southern Germany. Plates bearing the arms of Switzerland were also produced by Swiss pewterers in the 17th century. They have scenes taken from the history of Switzerland. The golden age of relief pewter, which had begun about 1570, ended in the third quarter of the 17th century. During this period, individual craftsmen had elevated pewter from its humble status as a material from which functional articles were made to one in which brilliant artistic feats could be performed. Relief pewter pieces were solely works of art, nonfunctional objects valued as showpieces.

Pewter dishes made in Italy in the 16th and 17th centuries have chased, etched, engraved, or chiselled decoration and lean heavily on artists working in brass or bronze for their designs. An independent pewter trade does not seem to have existed in Italy on anything like a large scale until the 18th century. (See engraving.)

After the Thirty Years' War the production of functional articles in pewter noticeably increased in northern Europe. Besides a very large number of different types of jugs, each region specializing in its own characteristic design, there were plates and dishes used at table and also basins and bowls, drinking mugs, and screw-top flasks.

Yet pewter was already feeling the draught of competition by the end of the 17th century. In this time pewter began to be superseded by products of other branches of the decorative arts. Its first rival, faience ware, was initially no more than an inferior substitute for porcelain; but because the factories that were soon springing up everywhere were able to produce very large quantities of faience, they inflicted heavy damage on the pewter trade. Faced with this situation, the pewterers switched to imitating the designs used by the silversmiths, in the hope of gaining favor in the more ambitious middle class circles. This attempt was successful; and, from the first quarter of the 18th century onward, "silver-type pewter" gained a firm hold, soon influencing the production and appearance of pewter ware made in the Regency and Rococo periods.

By about the middle of the 18th century, an ever-widening variety of articles was being made: the pewterers were able to supply anything from a spoon to a whole dinner service, including mustard pots, sauceboats, and spoons for serving punch. But this period of prosperity was short-lived. By the third quarter of the 18th century, pewter was rivalled both by porcelain, which could now be produced relatively cheaply by several factories in Europe, and by the even cheaper English earthenware that flooded markets on the Continent. This new development sealed the fate of the pewter trade. Towns that once had 20 or 30 busy and successful workshops had no more than one or two by the beginning of the 19th century. (See England.)

Although in Germany the demand for pewter seems to have increased for a few years after the Napoleonic era, particularly in country districts, by the middle of the 19th century industrialization finally put an end to a trade that had flourished for centuries.

In the second half of the century, when stylistic imitations were all the rage, pewter vessels were produced in the Neo-Baroque, Neo-Rococo, Neo-Gothic, Neo-Renaissance, and other styles that followed the many historicizing trends that emerged. Yet these pieces were made more often by mechanized metalworking factories than by pewterers. The Art Nouveau style that became fashionable at the end of the 19th century brought about a revival of pewter production; and individual firms succeeded in making original, well-designed pieces that are often of considerable aesthetic importance. The firm of Kayser in Oppum near Krefeld played a leading part in this revival. But the outbreak of World War I spelled the end of Art Nouveau--whose heady run of success had anyway been short-lived--and with it the end of old pewter.
(H.-U.H.)

Iron
Ironwork is fashioned either by forging or casting. Wrought iron is the type of ironwork that is forged on an anvil. There are no fabrication similarities to cast iron, which is poured in a molten state into prepared sand molds.
Wrought iron is fibrous in structure and light gray in colour. It can be hammered, twisted, or stretched when hot or cold. The more it is hammered, the more brittle and hard it becomes; but it can be brought back to its original state by annealing (heating and then cooling slowly). It will not shatter when dropped.

From earliest times, the smith has had a forge to heat the iron, an adjacent water tank in which to cool it, an anvil on which to form it, in addition to a wide assortment of hammers and tools. The most important tool is the anvil. The English type, generally used for forging wrought iron, has a flat top surface, which is used as a solid base for hammering the heated iron into shape, for welding, for splitting, or for incising decorative chisel marks in the hot iron. One end of the anvil is shaped like a pointed cone and is used for forming curved surfaces. The other blunt end, or heel, has one or two square or rectangular holes on top, into which fit various tools. From the anvil is derived the expression "to strike while the iron is hot," and this implies spontaneity and rapid hammer blows. The wrought-iron craftsman should not be expected to repeat with meticulous exactitude one intricate component after another. In fact, wrought iron by a master craftsman is esteemed for the variations that naturally occur.

The individual components of a wrought-iron design are often plain or twisted rods, with or without chisel-mark incisions. They are frequently composed as a series of straight, parallel members or in combination with scrolls, or as a repeat design of some geometric shape such as the quatrefoil. Where two curved members are tangent, they are characteristically secured together by bands or collars, rather than by welding. Where two straight bars intersect, it is accredited craftsmanship to make the vertical bar pierce or thread the horizontal member. Grilles consisting of two series of parallel small-diameter rods, one series at right angles to the other, were sometimes interlaced or woven.

Depending upon the depth of the relief, various fabrication techniques may be employed for repouss?, or three-dimensional, ornamental wrought ironwork. Sheets 1/16 inch (1.6 millimetres) or less in thickness generally are used. The general configuration of the modelling is obtained by beating the back of the sheet; the final details are embossed on the front face. The finer the scale and detail, the more work must be done when the iron is cold. A repouss? design may be pierced; but this term usually connotes a solid sheet forged into a mask, a shield, or an entire embossed panel. The traditional means of setting off a cutout repouss? design was to superimpose it on a vermillion-coloured background panel. Modern approximations of repouss? work consist of mechanically stamped designs touched up with random hammer blows.
(G.K.Ge.)

The most difficult way of decorating iron is to carve it. This involves fashioning figurative or decorative motifs out of the metal ingot with especially strengthened tools, using the material in the same way that the sculptor handles wood or stone. Only very precious iron articles are carved, such as coats of arms or pieces that are specifically designed to be displayed as works of art.
(H.-U.H.) (See carving.)

Cast iron is melted in a furnace or cupola, stoked with alternate layers of coking iron, then poured into prepared sand molds. After the cast iron cools in the mold, the sand is cleaned off, and the work is virtually complete. Its shape is fixed, and while a casting can be slightly trued up by the judicious use of a hammer, it is in no sense as workable as wrought iron. Thus, ornamental features in cast iron cannot be chased and polished as in cast bronze. If the ornamental cast-iron details are not replicas of the original pattern, the only recourse is to make a new casting. Because it is brittle, cast iron is almost certain to shatter if dropped.

Since it is cast in a mold, certain forms are more suitable to cast iron than to wrought iron. For example, if repetitive balusters, or columns, or panels with low-relief ornamentation are desired, cast iron is the most suitable material.
(G.K.Ge. )

Early History
The earliest recorded iron artifacts are some beads, dating from about 3500 BC or earlier, found at Jirzah in Egypt. They are made from meteoric iron, as are a number of other objects of only slightly later date that have been found both in Egypt and Mesopotamia. The earliest known examples of the use of smelted iron are fragments of a dagger blade in a bronze hilt, dating from the 28th century BC, found at Tall al-Asmar (modern Eshnunna), in Mesopotamia, and some pieces of iron from Tell Chagar Bazar, in the same area, of approximately the same date. There is, however, no evidence of any extensive use of iron in either Egypt or Mesopotamia before the end of the 2nd millennium BC. In Asia Minor, on the other hand, iron was probably used regularly from at least as early as 2000 BC; and it seems likely that the first true iron industry was established there in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC.
From the ancient Near East the knowledge of iron working was transmitted to Greece and the Aegean, probably at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC, whence it spread gradually to the rest of Europe. By the 6th century BC, it had been widely disseminated over central and western Europe. (See Greek art.)

Iron was at first apparently regarded as a precious, semi-magical material, presumably because of its rarity and its connection with meteorites. But once it had become common, as a result of increased knowledge of the technique of smelting ore, it seems to have been used, at least in Europe, almost exclusively for objects of utility. A few Belgic firedogs and at least one amphora, skillfully forged in iron, with decorative terminals in the form of animal heads, are known; but the practice of forging iron into decorative shapes does not seem to have become general until the Middle Ages.

A few cast-iron objects dating from classical times have been found in Europe. The extreme rarity of these, however, suggests that they were only produced experimentally. The earliest known evidence for the general use of cast iron comes from China (see below East Asia: China: Iron), and it does not seem to have been produced regularly in Europe before the 15th century.
(C.Bl.)


Belgium and Holland
The ironwork of these two small countries prior to the 15th century was in no way inferior to that produced elsewhere. Yet so few pieces remain that the significance of craftsmen of the Low Countries has often been underestimated. During the 15th century, design and craftsmen from the Low Countries began to make their influence evident across the channel in England. Representative examples of this period are in the Hervormde Kerk at Breda; the treasury door of the cathedral at Li?ge; and hinges of the church of Notre Dame, at Hal. The beautiful spires of Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp should be mentioned.
During the first half of the 16th century, before the Spanish occupation, there were diversified forms of ironwork, such as protective grilles for doors, windows, and chapels, often in fleur-de-lis patterns; window gratings of vertical bars, frequently octagonal in section; and interlacing bars, producing rectangular or lozenge-shaped patterns. Only a few examples still exist: some lunettes in the H?tel de Ville of Brussels; a tabernacle grille from the chapel of the counts of Flanders and a window grille from the Cathedral of St. Bavon, both from Ghent (Victoria and Albert Museum); and hinges at the H?tels de Ville of Bruges and Ypres (Flemish Ieper). Few Renaissance screens have survived.

During the second half of the 16th century, the cruelty of the Duke of Alba and his 20,000 troops, together with the threat of the Inquisition, drove hundreds of artisans to England. After the Spanish domination there was little indigenous design in Holland and Belgium, and such ironwork as was produced fell under the spell of French imports.
(G.K.Ge.) (See Netherlands, The.)

Part V next thread!!! hehe lol

 

[j.d. in the usa]

Part V!!

England
The initial use of wrought iron was purely protective because violent attacks were frequent, and doors had to be strengthened with massive ironwork inside and out. Window openings, especially those of the treasuries of mansions and cathedrals, were for similar reasons filled with strong interlacing bars of solid iron; a good example remains at Canterbury cathedral. When, in the course of time, the need for protective barriers ended, there was greater freedom of work and a definite trend toward ornamentation. Throughout England, medieval church doors are found with massive iron hinges, the bands worked in rich ornamental designs of scrollwork, varying from the plain hinge band, with crescent, to the most elaborate filling of the door. Examples exist at Skipwith and Stillingfleet in Yorkshire, many in the eastern counties, others in Gloucester, Somerset, and the west Midlands. The next important application of ironwork came with the erection of the great cathedrals and churches, whose shrines and treasures demanded protection. Winchester Cathedral possesses the remains of one screen with a symmetrical arrangement of scrollwork. Tombs were enclosed within railings of vertical bars with ornamental finials at intervals, such as that of the Black Prince at Canterbury. A new development appeared in the early years of the 15th century when the smith, working in cold iron, attempted to reproduce Gothic stone tracery in metal. This work was more like that of a woodworker than of a smith, often consisting of small pieces of iron chiselled and rivetted, and fixed on a background of sheet iron. Many small objects such as door knockers, handles, and escutcheons were executed in the same manner. A typical monumental example is in Henry V's chantry at Westminster Abbey; but the most magnificent is the great grille at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, made to protect the tomb of Edward IV.
The development of the art of smithing during the Renaissance period was very uneven in the various countries of Europe. In 16th-century England the smith fell behind and seemed to have lost interest, producing no very great or important work. He continued to make iron railings, balconies, and small objects for architectural application, such as hinges, latches, locks, and weathercocks. But toward the end of the 17th century, there was a growing interest in beautifying houses and laying out gardens and squares, with a commensurate demand for balconies, staircases, and garden gates. The man to whom the credit is usually given for the revival of ironwork in England was Jean Tijou, a Frenchman who, together with many of his Protestant fellow craftsmen, had been forced to leave his country owing to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. After some years in The Netherlands he went to England in 1689, where he enjoyed the patronage and favour of William III. His most important works for his royal patron are to be seen in the immense mass of screens and gates with which he embellished Hampton Court palace. He also executed work at Burleigh house, Stamford. Probably by the Queen's wish he was associated with the architect Sir Christopher Wren, then engaged on the rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral. Wren apparently did not particularly like ironwork and probably exercised some restraint on Tijou, with the result that his work at St. Paul's is more dignified and freer from appendages than that of Hampton Court.

There is a great amount of fine ironwork of the 18th century in London in the form of gates, railings, lamp holders, door brackets, balconies, and staircases; in almost every suburb there are gates and brackets. The precincts of the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, as well as almost every old town in England, furnish a variety of handsome work. Throughout the 18th century the smith was a busy man; the general tendency of his work, unaffected by the Rococo movement on the Continent, was toward a less ornate but more characteristically English style--perpendicular, severe, lofty, and commanding, as contrasted with Tijou's French love of richness and mass of details.

At the end of the 18th century the work of the architect brothers Adam shows a departure from true smithing; its slender delicate bars are enriched with rosettes, anthemia, and other ornament in brass or lead. The effect is pleasing and harmonizes with the architecture with which it is incorporated.

During the first half of the 19th century, the art of the smith was largely eclipsed by that of the iron caster. But under the stimulus of the Victorian Gothic revival and later of the Art Nouveau movement, there was a renewal of interest in the decorative use of wrought iron, and much excellent work was produced.

France
Medieval door-hinge ornaments were not basically different from those in England; and beautiful work is found on church doors, especially in central and northern France. It reaches a height of greater elaboration and magnificence than in England, the culminating example being the west doors of Notre Dame, Paris, the ironwork of which is so wonderful that it was attributed to superhuman workmanship. Grilles at Troyes and Rouen also reveal a high standard of excellence. Working the iron cold and employing methods associated with carpentry was immensely popular; it was applied to small objects such as door handles, knockers, and above all to locks, which exhibit an amazing amount of detail and a remarkable delicacy of finish.
The Gothic tradition survived in France until well into the 16th century and was marked by the production of work of the highest skill, largely in the form of locks, knockers, and caskets of chiselled iron. The introduction of the Renaissance style did not radically alter the direction of the smith's art--a strange fact when it is remembered that Germany and Spain were fabricating works of enormous size and magnificence in wrought iron. France, like England at that time, was content to make door furniture, in the form of locks, keys, bolts, escutcheons, and the like, but did little ironwork of any great size. A school of locksmiths came into being under Francis I and Henry II, working from designs by Androuet du Cerceau in the 16th century and those by Mathurin Jousse and Antoine Jacquard in the 17th. The bows (a loop forming the handle) and wards (notches) of keys were of unusually intricate design and the locks of corresponding richness. Representative pieces may be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Among them is the famous Strozzi key, said to have been made for the apartments of Henry III, the bow of which takes the favoured form of two grotesque figures back to back. But as far as architectural ironwork was concerned, France remained almost at a standstill until the accession of Louis XIII in 1610. Under that monarch, a worker at the forge himself, came a great revival, which, by the end of the 17th century, had attained a marvellous pitch of perfection. It proved to be the beginning of a new movement, the force of which made itself felt in the adjoining countries and inspired ironworkers with new energy. From the accession of Louis XIV, the French ironworkers must be acknowledged as the cleverest in Europe, combining as they did good and fitting design with masterly execution. Their designs were often very daring, exploiting all the latent and previously unexplored possibilities of iron. They recognized its great adaptability and took every advantage of it, at the same time being conscious of its limitations. Their forms of expression were endless.

Screens and gates were needed for parks, gardens, and avenues, staircases for mansions and palaces, screens for churches and cathedrals. Among celebrated designers were Jean Lepautre, Daniel Marot, and Jean Berain. Earlier work had been of a simple character--balconies, for instance, being in the form of a succession of balusters--but as the smith became more versatile and imaginative, they took the form of panels of flowing curved scrolls, rendered with a freedom never attained before, while constructive strength was observed and symmetry maintained. Enrichments were usually attached in hammered sheet iron. These may be considered the distinguishing features of Louis XIV work, such as that at St. Cloud, Chantilly, Fontainebleau, and elsewhere. But under Louis XIV all previous efforts were surpassed in the work for his palace at Versailles.

The art of ironwork received a further impetus by the introduction of the Rococo style. The movement, initiated in 1723, was due principally to the imagination of two artists, Just-Aur?le Meissonier, architect, and Gilles-Marie Oppenordt. There was a balanced asymmetry in the design and fantastic curves with a luxury of applied ornamentation. To the French smith it furnished the opportunity for a yet greater display of his skill. He was clever enough to secure a feeling of stability in his work by counterbalancing swirling masses of ornament with straight constructional lines; he knew how to introduce an iron screen of Rococo style into a Gothic church or cathedral without giving offense to the eye or arousing any uncomfortable feeling of incongruity.

Later in the 18th century, ironwork took on a more classical appearance as a result of the general revival of interest in ancient art; and many Greek and Roman details were introduced into the ornamentation. The amount of work executed was prodigious, and its beauty and craftsmanship may be seen in most cities of France. Nearly all of the adjacent countries, with the exception of England, were seized with the desire to imitate the French Rococo style.

Germany
In the Romanesque period in Germany, bronze was preferred to iron; the earliest examples of ironwork are thus later than those of France and England. The first iron grilles were imitations of French work, with C-scrolls filling spaces between vertical bars. Typical examples of door hinges prior to the 14th century were those at Kaisheim, St. Magnus Church, Brunswick, and St. Elizabeth's Church, Marburg (the latter having a curious cross in the middle). Throughout the Gothic period in Germany, the imitation of natural foliage was the basis of design.
There were no new marked developments in ironwork during the 14th century. Smiths confined their efforts mostly to hinges. Until this period the vine had been the only motif for elaborate hinges; but flat, lozenge-shaped leaves were introduced, such as those at Schloss Lahneck on the Rhine.

During the 15th century, grilles became more popular. One of the best examples is the grille in the Monument of Bishop Ernst of Bavaria, Magdeburg cathedral (c. 1495), with elaborate Gothic tracery, nine columns, and a cornice. In hinges the cinquefoil displaced the quatrefoil, as at Orb, Oppenheim, and Magdeburg. The Erfurt cathedral was enriched with notable hinges having the vine pattern interpolated with rosettes and escutcheons of arms. Hinges for houses usually were the plain strap type, but when ornamented they consisted of superimposed layers of sheet iron. As in other parts of Europe at this time, pierced sheet iron was fashioned into tracery of a semi-architectural nature, much like Gothic windows. Pierced ornament and twisted rods were often combined to form grilles, with their extremities beaten into complicated foliage forms.

During the Renaissance, ironwork in Germany was in use everywhere and for every purpose: for screens in churches, window grilles, stove guards, gates, fountain railings, well heads, grave crosses, door knockers, handles, locks, iron signs, and small objects for domestic use. Smiths were their own designers and more often than not planned intricate devices merely to show their skill in executing them. They set no limits to their problems; and so far as manipulative excellence went, the German smiths were the foremost in Europe. But clever as their workmanship undoubtedly was, their designs frequently showed a lack of stability and a tendency to run riot. Thus, many of their most imposing works consist largely of filling panels with elaborate, interlacing scrollwork, and the sense of constructional and protective strength is missing.

An abundance of smiths' work is to be found in the southern parts of Germany. Iron bars, circular in section, were most frequently used; and the most common features are interlacing bars and terminations of flowers with petals and twisted centres, foliage, or human heads. All of these characteristics occur with almost monotonous repetition, witnessing to skill but also to lack of imagination and sense of design. The style may be studied in many German and Austrian cities, such as Augsburg, N?rnberg, Frankfurt, Salzburg, Munich, and Innsbruck.

The German smith gave much attention to door knockers and handles, enclosing them in pierced and embossed escutcheons, and devised locks with very involved mechanism. German influence made itself strongly felt in Switzerland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia.

The Baroque and Rococo periods are distinguished by a perfection of detail that exceeded that of German Medieval or Renaissance ironwork. Smiths used wrought iron as though it were a plastic material, meant to be employed in extravagant forms wherever possible. Some examples are at Zwiefalten, Weingarten, and Klosterneuburg. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, cast ironwork of outstanding quality was produced in Germany, notably at the Prussian royal foundry established in 1804.

Italy
The few extant examples of ironwork in Italy prior to the 14th century indicate a wide appreciation of how the material could best be worked with only the tools of the smith. Some noteworthy examples are the chancel grille at the left of the nave, Orvieto Cathedral (1337); the grille around the Scaligeri tombs of Verona (c. 1340); the grille at the baptistery of Prato cathedral (1348); the chancel screen in the sacristy chapel of Sta. Croce, Florence (1371); and the grille to the Capella degli Spagnoli, Sta. Maria Novello, Florence.
Until the 16th century, Italian smiths respected the natural characteristics of wrought iron by relying almost entirely upon those forms that could be wrought with hammer and anvil. The grille was usually made by dividing it into regular panels with vertical and horizontal bars (sometimes triangular in section and enriched with dentils, or small, projecting triangular blocks). Often the quatrefoil filled some or all of these panels; they were made in Tuscany from a pierced plate and in Venice from separate scrolls collared together. A noted example is in the Palazzo della Signoria, Siena, crowned by a repouss? frieze and surmounted by a cresting of flowers, spikes, and some animal heads.

It might have been thought that in the fountainhead of the Renaissance, ironwork would have proceeded at the same pace and with the same brilliant success as architecture, sculpture, bronze casting, and the other arts. Strangely enough, little use of it is found in connection with the fine buildings of the revival. Bronze was favoured; and what in other countries is found in iron has its counterpart in Italy in bronze. As time went on the smiths grew less inclined toward the more difficult processes of hammering and welding and contented themselves ultimately with thin ribbon iron, the various parts of which were fastened together by collars. Work of the later periods may be distinguished, apart from the design, by this feature, whereas the English and French smiths vigorously faced the hardest methods of work, and the German and Spanish smiths invented difficulties for the sheer pleasure of overcoming them.

Notable centres of artistic ironwork were Florence, Siena, Vicenza, Venice, Lucca, and Rome, where important pieces may be found in the form of gates, balconies, screens, fanlights (semicircular windows with radiating sash bars like the ribs of a fan), well covers, and a mass of objects for domestic use, such as bowl stands, brackets, and candlesticks.

In screenwork the favourite motif was the quatrefoil, which has been found with many variations ever since the 14th century. Early examples are strong and virile, but later ones tend to weakness. The C-shaped scroll is also used in many combinations. The churches and palaces of Venice contain many examples of these popular designs. Peculiar to Italy are the lanterns and banner holders such as may still be seen at Florence, Siena, and elsewhere, and the rare gondola prows of Venice. Of the ironworkers of the early Renaissance, the most famous was the late-15th-century craftsman Niccolo Grosso of Florence, nicknamed "Il Caparra" because he gave no credit but insisted on money on account. From his hand is the well-known lantern on the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, repeated with variations elsewhere in the same city. Siena has lanterns and banner holders attached to the facades of its palaces, and lanterns are still to be seen at Lucca and a few other towns.

The decadence of 17th- and 18th-century ironwork paralleled that of architecture. Designs were borrowed directly from France and Germany. The metal was too often worked cold, using thin members; and the resulting construction was flimsy. Scrolls were often encased in thin, grasslike leaves. Conventional or naturalistic flowers were tacked on as seeming afterthoughts. Instead of using rods and bars, ribbonlike bands were used, with cast ornaments pinned on. Intersecting tracery was copied from Germany. The best examples of this period are confined to Venice and northern Italy, such as the screen in the south aisle chapel of S. Ambrogio, Milan; the chapel enclosure in S. Pietro, Mantua; and the screen in the Palazzo Capodilista, Padua.


Spain
Prior to the 15th century, Spanish ironwork was basically similar to that in France and England. The Spanish smith accepted the limitations imposed by anvil and ancillary tools; but he skillfully exploited to the limit all manner of variations--twisting square rods, coiling flat bars into C-shaped scrolls of all sizes, and devising imaginative crestings to surmount the top of church chapel screens or domestic window grilles. Many Moorish craftsmen of extraordinary ability were enticed to remain in Spain as the Moors were slowly pushed southward; the resultant blending of Gothic with Moorish resulted in the Mudejar style.
Ironwork of the Renaissance period from about 1450 to 1525 reached a height of grandeur and magnificence attained in no other country. Of all the Spanish craftsmen the smiths were the busiest, especially during the 16th century. The ironwork products that for more than a century dominated the craft are the monumental screens (rejas) found in all the great cathedrals of Spain. These immense structures, rising 25 to 30 feet (7.5 to nine metres) show several horizontal bands, or tiers, of balusters, sometimes divided vertically by columns of hammered work and horizontally by friezes of hammered arabesque ornament. Usually such screens are surmounted by a cresting, which is sometimes of simple ornament but more often a very elaborate design into which are introduced a large number of human figures. Shields of arms are freely incorporated; and the use of bright colour, silvering, and gilding adds to their impressive beauty. The great balusters were always forged from the solid, and their presence in hundreds demonstrates the extraordinary skill and power of the Spanish smith. In many cathedrals two of these monumental rejas are found facing one another. There is at least one in every large cathedral--Barcelona, Saragossa, Toledo, Seville, Burgos, Granada, C?rdoba, and many others.

Ironwork on a smaller scale is found in gates, balconies, and window screens; wrought-iron pulpits also exist. Panels of hammered and pierced iron, heightened with colours and gilding, were used in connection with domestic architecture; and many doors were ornamented with elaborate nailheads or embossed studs.
(W.W.W./G.K.Ge.)

United States
The characteristics of the earliest ironwork in the various colonies naturally reflected those of the parent countries. The English were more sparing in its use in the New England Colonies than were the Germans in Pennsylvania or the French in Louisiana. In the 17th and 18th centuries ironwork was used mostly for such practical purposes as weather vanes, foot scrapers, strap hinges, latches, locks, and particularly for the necessities and conveniences for fireplaces (firedogs, cranes, skewers, toasters, kettle warmers, and spits). It was not until the late 18th century, when the threat of Indian raids and food shortages had waned and the established communities enjoyed a sense of tranquillity and prosperity, that smiths fashioned wrought iron into railings, fences, grilles, gates, and balconies. Square or flat iron bars were generally used to produce designs that were usually light, airy, and graceful and rather in contrast to the contemporary European preference for sturdier forms.
Gradually, ironwork designs tended to develop characteristics of an American or composite nature, as a logical consequence of the diverse origins of colonists and smiths. An innovation that appeared toward the end of the 18th century was the combination of structural wrought-iron rods or bars with lead or cast-iron ornamental features. While the use of wrought iron declined in the 19th century, during its last quarter the use of cast-iron columns and panels for nonresidential buildings increased. These designs, timid or bold, decorative or structural, engendered the prototypes of commercial buildings for the ensuing decades.

Because the life of structures in U.S. cities has been short, there are few examples of 18th- or early 19th-century ironwork extant in New York City, not many more in Boston, some in Philadelphia, but more in and near Washington, D.C., such as the excellent balconies and railings at the Octagon (headquarters of the American Institute of Architects). Charleston, South Carolina, has a rich legacy in gates, notably those at numbers 12, 23, and 36 Legare Street, 63 Meeting Street, and an unusually beautiful pair at St. Michael's Church.

New Orleans has more ironwork than other U.S. cities, thanks to a group of citizens dedicated to the preservation of the old French Quarter. Its earliest ironwork was forged by Spanish and French smiths. Unfortunately, fires, rust, and remodelling have so taken their toll of the Spanish ironwork that almost the only remaining example of importance is the gateway of the Cabildo (town hall). It has moldings beaten from solid bars, like many of the old rejas in Spanish cathedrals. After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the influx of ironworkers from northern states brought about a broadening of influences that is apparent in designs and techniques. Ironwork of New Orleans can be roughly divided into three periods: (1) forged wrought iron by French and Spanish artisans with strongly marked European characteristics; (2) a transitional period with wrought-iron structural members embellished with cast-iron ornaments in the Directoire and Empire styles of France, plus some U.S. innovations; and (3) entire grilles, screens, and trellises made entirely of cast iron. No other city in the U.S. has two- and even three-story iron porches and balconies that can compare with those of New Orleans. Some of these lacy structures, such as those on St. Peter Street, were built above the sidewalks. Balconies sometimes not only extended across an entire facade but continued around a corner.

Mid-19th Century Onward
Distinctive national characteristics in the design of ironwork gradually tended to disappear in Europe because of increased travel and communications between countries. The influence of French Renaissance architecture (modified or revived) continued to exert a viable effect where the acceptance of the Art Nouveau (last quarter of the 19th century) was flaccid or denied. In England, however, 18th-century designs continued with slight modifications. In the U.S. probably the most important force, prior to World War I, was exercised by architects trained in Paris, with the result that ironwork designs were similar to French work of this period. (See France.)
The increased mechanization of all forms of manufacture understandably affected the character and use of ironwork. As the cost of cast iron came down, its use increased. Because wrought iron is produced by hand by beating red-hot iron on an anvil, not much change was possible through increased mechanization, whereas the casting of molten iron lent itself to improved equipment and techniques. The lowered cost of duplicating ornamental cast-iron components and the introduction of structural steel parts expanded the usage of ironwork to the modest building, whereas it had been generally confined to public or monumental structures. Foundries in the U.S. established a flourishing business in pierced cast-iron panels, modelled after Louisiana porch trellises.

Compared with prior periods, the last half of the 19th century will scarcely be commemorated as introducing enduring or beautiful ironwork forms. It was not until the first quarter of the 20th century that a master craftsman-designer gave impetus to a new conception of design forms and textures. Edgar Brandt of Paris broadened the scope of decorative usage by the rich inventiveness of his compositions and by an entirely original approach that resulted in a wrought-iron texture that is akin to beaten silver. Examples of his work at the Exposition des Arts D?coratifs Modernes at Paris in 1925 had an immediate effect upon ironwork designed and executed in the U.S. during the great building boom that lasted until about 1930. During this period, both wrought and cast iron enjoyed an unprecedented period of popularity not only in the form of bank screens, entrance doors, and grilles in public buildings but as decorative grilles and gates in private homes. In many cases the craftsmanship equaled that of representative examples of the Gothic or Renaissance periods in Europe.

One of the most gifted and dedicated iron craftsmen in the U.S., Samuel Yellin of Philadelphia, raised the standards of wrought-iron craftsmanship to its apex during the 1920s. He not only trained an atelier of craftsmen for the first time in the U.S., but by his efforts wrought iron was recognized as capable of enriching even the most monumental building. Yellin's influence, however, was ended by the Depression of the early 1930s. As building activity declined after 1930, so did the use of ironwork; and it did not increase with the revival of building after World War II.
(G.K.Ge.)

Lead
Lead has two main uses in which some artistic purpose may be served: in architecture, as a material for roof coverings, gutters, piping, and cisterns; and in decorative art, as a material for sculpture and applied ornament. As an architectural material it has the advantage of being easily worked and yet offers great resistance to climatic conditions. The low melting point of lead and its relative freedom from contraction when solidifying make it particularly suitable for casting, and it has been used as a substitute for bronze or precious metals.
Antiquity
The earliest known lead sculptures are small votive figures found at Troy and Mycenae. In the Hellenistic period lead sarcophagi were known, and the Romans made much use of the metal. Large amounts of worked lead in various forms have been found in those parts of England where the Romans had permanent settlements. (See Roman Republic and Empire.)
Middle Ages
England was one of the main lead-producing areas in the Middle Ages, and lead was more widely employed there than on the continent of Europe. In the 12th century the German monk Theophilus, in his treatise on metalworking, refers to lead only in connection with casting rods for stained-glass windows and as a material through which silver sheets might be hammered; but in England at about the same time a remarkable series of lead fonts was cast, of which 16 still survive in position, the most famous being those at Walton-on-the-Hill, Surrey, and at Wareham and Dorchester in Dorset. Lead was also used in the Middle Ages for church roofing; and it was used, doubtless because of its cheapness, for the small badges or medallions sold to pilgrims at the great medieval shrines. Lead could even be useful, in the proper disguise, to simulate rich ecclesiastical objects, for not all religious institutions were wealthy: a group of 14th-century caskets covered with lead tracery, gilded to look like precious metal, have survived in church treasuries. These were used as reliquaries, but some were originally made for secular purposes. (See Middle Ages.)
Renaissance to modern
The Renaissance passion for collecting bronze medals and plaquettes led to a demand for cheap replicas, and these were made with great precision in lead. The metal also played an important role in the goldsmiths' trade. The fashion for elaborate relief ornament of the Renaissance and Mannerist periods called for a degree of skill in modelling that was beyond the powers of the average goldsmith. The practice therefore grew up for the pattern makers of Augsburg and N?rnberg, Germany, to sell lead models of ornamental details and figures from which goldsmiths working elsewhere could in turn make molds. An extensive collection of these models is preserved in the Historisches Museum, Basel, Switzerland. The trade expanded to include large medallions and plaquettes, the chief masters of which were the German goldsmiths Peter Fl?tner, Jonas Silber, and the Master H.G. (Hans Jamnitzer) and the Dutch goldsmith family of van Vianen. Lead in sculpture is more suitable for the production of small figures than life-size statues, which, if unsupported, become distorted through their own weight. Among the few life-size equestrian lead statues is one of Frederick Louis, prince of Wales, in the grounds of Hartwell House, Buckinghamshire, England. From the 16th century, lead appeared in England in the form of gutters and pipe heads (which carried rainwater down from the gutters), often with cast ornament. Some of the late-17th- and early-18th-century pipe heads, cast with the arms of the owner of the house and the date of erection, are important decorative features.
An extension of the use of lead took place with the introduction of lead garden sculpture--figures, vases, and urns--in the late 17th century. An example of this work is a pair of garden vases 15 feet high at Schloss Scheissheim in Bavaria. The silvery gray colour of such sculpture and its resistance to the weather made it suitable for use in the many formal gardens that were created at this time. English garden sculpture rarely achieves any particular aesthetic status; but in 18th-century Germany and Austria lead was used for more serious sculpture by a group of artists of high standing. In the 19th century, lead was out of favour with sculptors, partly because improved transport made it possible to bring marble from Italy at low cost. Its soft colouring and the fact that it does not reflect light give it advantages, however, and it has been used in the 20th century by Aristide Maillol and by Sir Jacob Epstein, who executed the lead figure of the Virgin and Child in Cavendish Square, London.
(J.F.Ha.) (See Renaissance art.)

Non-Western Metalwork
South Asia
Iron
The manufacture of iron by primitive smallscale methods has survived in southern India and Ceylon to the present day. The slag heaps of ancient furnaces are common, and the processes have probably been in use for more than 2,000 years; but it is unknown whether they are of indigenous invention or acquired. In southern India iron immediately succeeded stone as a material for tools and weapons, and prehistoric iron weapons began to come into use about 500 BC. The wrought-iron pillar of Delhi, set up about AD 400 by Kumara Gupta I in honour of his father, is over 23 feet (seven metres) in height and weighs more than six tons. It demonstrates the abilities of Indian metalworkers in handling large masses of material, for not until the latter part of the 19th century could anything of the same kind have been made in Europe. There are other large iron pillars at Dhar and at Mt. Abu.
(Ed.)
Gold and Silver
In India, gold jewelry has been found from the Indus culture. Excavations at Takshasila (Taxila) have revealed gold and silver drinking vessels and jewelry of Hellenistic types dating back to about the 1st century AD. From the same time is the important Buddhist gold reliquary from Bimaran, Afghanistan, set in rubies and decorated with embossed figures in Gandhara style (British Museum). (See goldwork, silverwork.)
During the Gupta period (AD 320-647), vessels of Hellenistic and Persian shapes were evidently made, for they are represented in the sculpture and frescoes of the period. More Indian in style are a silver dish of the 3rd or 4th century, decorated with a Bacchanalian scene of a yaksa drinking (see photograph), and a silver bowl of the 7th century from northern India, which is embellished with medallions in low relief (both in the British Museum). Jewelry played a very important role, and, although no original pieces have survived, it can be studied in frescoes at Ajanta and on contemporary sculptures.

In spite of the fact that gold and silver vessels have been common in India since classical times, there is very little material extant before the 17th century, when all kinds of vessels were produced in bronze, brass, copper, and, for the royal houses, in silver. Shapes and decorations vary in different regions. Delhi was famous for its craftsmen, especially in the time of Akbar in the 16th century and Jahangir and Shah Jahan in the 17th. Much work was done in precious metal, and vessels and ornaments of jade were inlaid with gold and gems. Northern India is famous for its enamels. Enamellers from Lahore were brought to Jaipur in the 16th century by Man Singh, and enamel was employed extensively in combination with goldwork and silverwork in the 17th and 18th centuries there and elsewhere. The Punjab, Lucknow, and the districts of Chanda and Cutch in Gujarat state were long celebrated for their metalworkers. In the south, silverwork in svamin-style is characterized by religious-figure scenes in relief, executed in three different techniques. Craftsmen in Tirupati put silver sheet on copper; Madras, Bangalore, and Tiruchirappalli are known for hammered vessels with traced decoration; and Thanjavur (Tanjore) produced a more Baroque effect with inlays of silver in copper. From the former Travancore state, Mysore, and Bijaipur in the southwest come chased vessels with floral patterns, the lotus predominating. In the north the Hindu style is well represented by works from Varanasi (Benares). (See enamelwork.)

Persian-Islamic influence is found in several vessel shapes; for example, ewers and basins for water and smoking furniture, such as hookas, which also have Islamic patterns. Jewelry from the later periods employs precious stones, pearls, gold, and silver in great variety. The old types are repeated, with symmetrical arrangements of rosettes and leaves for bracelets, necklaces, pendants, rings, and foot ornaments. Very fine work in silver filigree was executed at Cuttack in Orissa and was used on jewelry and various larger items.

Central and Southeast Asia
Indian styles and techniques spread to the neighbouring countries. In Nepal precious metals were used in architecture; pagodas, temples, and palaces sometimes had facades richly decorated with ornaments embossed in gilt copper with settings of precious stones.
In Tibet copper and brass were usually used for vessels, but these metals were often decorated with applied silver or gold ornaments; and in eastern Tibet, especially, teapots were made of silver with gilt appliqu?. While many of the ornaments are Chinese, Buddhist shapes and patterns of Indian origin were used for ritual vessels. Other ritual objects were sometimes made of silver or, more rarely, of gold, though bronze is again the common material. Silver is used for amulets and jewelry with rich settings of turquoises, carnelian, and lapis lazuli. (See Buddhism, ceremonial object.)

In Thailand, Buddhist vessels were made out of chased silver, very often in the shape of a lotus flower whose petals are decorated with other, embossed, floral and figure motifs.

Burma is known for its chased silver vessels heavily decorated with figures and floral patterns in relief, related to the south Indian svamin work. The use of gold and silver vessels for domestic purposes was denied to all but those of royal blood. Good examples of earlier golden regalia are in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

In Vietnam, goldwork and silverwork of the Cham culture are preserved from the 10th century. It is exemplified by a crown and heavy jewelry made for a life-size statue found in the ruin of a temple at Mison. From later times there is a royal treasure with four crowns, various amulets, arm rings, and table services of gold, richly decorated with embossing and openwork.
(B.V.Gy.)

East Asia
China
Bronze
Bronzes have been cast in China for about 3,700 years. Most bronzes of about 1500-300 BC, roughly the Bronze Age in China, may be described as ritual vessels intended for the worship of ancestors, who are often named in inscriptions on the bronzes. Many were specially cast to commemorate important events in the lives of their possessors. The vessels were also meant to serve as heirlooms, and the inscriptions often end with the admonishment "Let sons and grandsons for a myriad years cherish and use." These ritual vessels of ancient China include some of the loveliest objects ever made by man, and as a group they represent possibly the most remarkable achievement in the whole history of metalcraft before modern times. Since the vessels can be considered sculpture, they are discussed in East Asian arts. (See Chinese art.)

Among other ritual bronzes, bells constitute an important group. Perhaps the oldest class is a small clappered bell called ling, but the best known is certainly the suspended, clapperless bell, chung. Chung were cast in sets of eight or more, to form a musical scale, and were probably played in the company of string and wind instruments. The section is a flattened ellipse, and on each side of the body appear 18 blunt spikes, or bosses, arranged in three double rows of three. These often show marks of filing, and it has been suggested that they were devices whereby the bell could be tuned to the requisite pitch by removing small quantities of the metal. The oldest specimen recovered in a closed excavation is one from P'u-tu Ts'un, dating from the 9th century BC.
Vast numbers of secular bronzes were cast. These include weapons, such as the chih and ko dagger axes and the short sword; chariot and harness fittings; trigger mechanisms for bows; weights, scales, and measures; belt hooks; and mirrors. The last appear in great numbers from the 5th century BC onward. They are flat disks, with a central perforated boss by which they could be mounted on a stand. Their backs are covered with a maze of intricate relief designs and feature a diversified series of well-defined subjects.
(W.Y.W.)

Iron
Iron began to take its place in the brilliant Bronze Age culture of China during the Ch'in dynasty (221-206 BC) and the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220). By the end of the 2nd century AD, bronze weapons had been almost completely supplanted, and iron had been generally substituted for bronze in common use in utensils and vessels of various kinds, tools, chariot fittings, and even small pieces of sculpture. These were commonly cast in sand molds, were patterned after bronze prototypes, and were typical of the Han period in style and decoration.
From the 9th century, iron increasingly took the place of bronze in China as a material for sculpture, especially in the north and under the Sung dynasty. The few extant examples from the 11th century and later show work done on a larger scale and in coarser technique than the bronzes, though the modelling is usually more naturalistic.

Several iron pagodas, dating from the 10th to the 14th century and ranging in size from miniature models to towers 100 feet or more in height, give further evidence of the dexterity of the Chinese iron caster. The pagodas imitate, in detail, both the structural and decorative effects of the more common tile-roofed brick pagodas. Iron for temple furniture has long been in use, and a large number of the braziers, censers, caldrons, and bells found today in the temples are of iron.

In China in the 17th century the iron picture was developed, the craftsmen seeking to reproduce in permanent form through the medium of wrought iron the effects of the popular ink sketches of the master painters. When completed, these pictorial compositions were mounted in windows, in lanterns, or in frames as pictures. When in the latter form, a paper or silk background often bore the signature and seal of the maker, heightening the resemblance to a painting. The craft flourished in Anhwei Province and is still practiced, though with less patience and fineness than formerly.
(B.Ma.)

Gold and Silver
In ancient China gold and silver were rare. Gold was used as an inlay for bronzes in the Chou dynasty (1111-255 BC), and between the 6th and the 2nd centuries, gilding and silvering were common. Dress hooks and small items of jewelry were sometimes cast in gold and silver and imitated the more usual bronze forms. Granular work--a technique that probably has an Indian origin--was used for jewelry.
Silverwork first became important during the T'ang dynasty (AD 618-907), when the Chinese had learned from the Sasanid Persians how to chase the silver. In the beginning, they followed their teachers very closely in the forms of the bowls and larger vessels as well as in the patterns. T'ang drinking vessels, ewers, trays, and lobed oval dishes on a stem are Persian shapes transformed by Chinese taste. Among the patterns are vine and palmette scrolls of great variety, hunting scenes, and landscapes of symmetrical flowers and trees with birds and animals; all of these have parallels in Persian silver and textiles but are more delicate in their Chinese version. The techniques used by the Sasanid silversmiths were adopted by the Chinese; for example, double sheets for a bowl and tracing of the patterns on ring-matted ground. T'ang jewelry is made of gold or gilt silver.

During the Sung dynasty (960-1279), silverwork declined in technical quality but jewelry played a more dominant role. Hair ornaments became increasingly intricate, with elaborate naturalistic flowers and various auspicious symbols.

During the Y?an (1206-1368) and Ming (1368-1644) periods, skill in silverwork revived, and once again the smiths followed many Near Eastern styles. Drinking vessels (ewers and cups), boxes, and even large ceremonial gold vessels have been found in Ming tombs. During the excavation of the tomb of Emperor Wan-li (1572-1620), a series of gold vessels set with precious stones was found. All of the gold items are decorated with incised patterns of dragons, phoenixes, and similar subjects.

During the Ch'ing period (1644-1911/12), both silver and gold were used lavishly, and gold filigree work especially is common in the 18th century. Most of the forms and ornaments employed, however, are borrowed from lacquer and porcelain ware; and only jewelry has its own style, rich combinations of kingfisher feathers glued to the metal.

Korea
The Chinese colonists who settled Korea during the Han empire (206 BC-AD 220) first brought goldsmiths and silversmiths to Korea. By the 5th to 6th century AD Korean work, as exemplified by large gold crowns and various pieces of jewelry excavated from tombs at Kyongju, was beginning to develop distinctive characteristics. At the time of the Unified Silla (668-635) and Koryo (935-1392) kingdoms, Chinese influence was strong, but the Korean style persisted in silverwork and goldwork. Several vessels with floral patterns in relief are preserved from these periods.
(B.V.Gy.) (See Korean art.)
Japan
Iron
The Iron Age in Japan is supposed to have begun in the 2nd century BC, though the chief early remains are weapons that date from the dolmens of the 2nd to the 8th century AD. The Japanese iron founder attained a considerable skill at an early date and acquired a social position that was never attained by the bronze caster or by the ironworkers in China, where the Bronze Age tradition was much stronger. It is apparent that iron was used in China chiefly as a substitute or imitative medium; it was worked often with great skill but with little artistic invention. In Japan, however, the ironworker developed a distinctive and original means of expression and high artistic attainment in accessories for the sword. With the rise of feudalism and the establishment of the samurai class after the wars of the 12th century, the necessary equipment of the warriors became a focus for the efforts of the artist. (See Japanese art.)
At first these efforts were devoted to the embellishment of defensive armour, but from the 15th century the sword became the centre of attention. The blade is not properly part of the subject of this article; but in the mountings, especially the guards (tsuba), is found exquisite artistry expressed chiefly in iron. A remarkably soft and pure variety of the metal especially free from sulfur was employed. It was worked by casting, hammering, and chiselling; and innumerable surface effects were obtained by tooling, inlaying, incrustation, combination with other metals, and patination by various, usually secret, processes. Simple conventional patterns, crests, and pictorial designs were the bases for the decoration. As these were often furnished by painters or designers, the criterion of connoisseurship in Japan is the unsurpassed technical quality of the handling of the iron itself. With the promulgation of the edict of 1876, prohibiting the wearing of swords, this art came to an end, but the skill of the Japanese ironworker may still be noted in numerous small decorative objects.
(B.Ma.)

Gold and silver
Knowledge of metalwork seems to have spread to Japan by way of Korea during the Yayoi period (c. 250 BC-c. AD 250), but gold and silver never played any important role there. In the Nara period (AD 710-784), the Chinese T'ang style was dominant, and most of the goldwork and silverwork preserved in the Shosoin at Nara was made under Chinese influence or by Chinese workmen. Silver vessels were used extensively among the aristocracy in the Heian period (794-1185), though not many of these vessels have survived, and both gold and silver were often used for applied reliefs or as inlay on bronze. In the later periods the use of precious metals was practically confined to inlays in bronze or iron, and the highest technical skill is shown by the artists who made the sword fittings.
(B.V.Gy.)
American Indian Peoples
Pre-Columbian
In pre-Columbian America, gold, silver, and copper were the principal metals that were worked, with tin, lead, and platinum used less frequently. When the Spaniards arrived in the New World in the 16th century, they found a wide range of well-developed technical skills in fine metalwork in Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, and the Andean region. They had very little to offer the Indian smiths, who had already mastered the techniques of cold hammering and annealing; embossed decoration and chasing; pressing sheet gold over or into carved molds to make a series of identical forms; sheathing wood, bone, resin, and shell ornaments with gold foil; decorating with metal inlays and incrustation with jade, rock crystal, turquoise, and other stones; joining by clinching, stapling, and soldering; possibly drawing gold wire (in Ecuador and western Mexico); casting by the lost-wax method of solid and hollow ornaments, often with false filigree or false granulation decoration; wash gilding; and colouring alloys containing gold by "pickling" in plant acids. There was some regional specialization: hammer work in "raising" a vessel from a flat disk of sheet gold or silver reached its apogee in Peru, and lost-wax casting was highly developed in Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, and Mexico. Miniature, hollow lost-wax castings of the Mixtec goldsmiths in Mexico have never been surpassed in delicacy, realism, and precision; and some solid-cast frogs from Panama are so tiny and fine that they must be viewed through a magnifying glass to be appreciated. In Mexico bimetallic objects of gold and silver were made by two-stage casting; the gold part was cast first and the silver, which has a lower melting point, was then "cast on" to the gold in a separate operation. (A famous example is the pectoral of Teotitl?n del Camino in the National Museum in Mexico City.) A silver llama in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City indicates that the Peruvian smiths had taken the first step toward cloisonn?, the cloisons being filled with cinnabar instead of enamel. (See Native American arts, embossing, repouss?.)
A truly great technological and artistic triumph of the pre-Hispanic workers in Ecuador was the making of complex beads of microscopic fineness from an alloy of gold and platinum. This feat was achieved by sintering (to combine by alternately hammering and heating without melting) gold dust and small grains of alluvial platinum. (Platinum was a metal not to be used in Europe until 500 or 600 years later.)

As in other early cultures, the pre-Hispanic goldsmiths were a privileged and highly respected group, sometimes having their own patron deity such as Xipe Totec in Mexico or Chibchachun in Colombia. In Peru just before and at the time of the Conquest, the goldsmith (kori-camayoc) is said to have been a full-time government worker, who was supported by the state and who produced exclusively for the Inca. According to early Mexican picture writings (codices) and accounts of the Spanish chroniclers, the craft was hereditary, the secrets passed on from father to son.

The earliest examples of metalwork in the New World come from the "Old Copper" culture that flourished in the upper Great Lakes region of North America beginning about 4000 BC and continuing over the course of the next 2,000 years. The earliest goldwork is considerably later and consists of sheet-gold adornments with embossed decoration from Chongoyape, Peru, that were made sometime between 1000 and 500 BC. Casting seems to have begun in Mochica times early in the Christian Era in northern Peru, whence it is thought to have spread northward into Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, and finally Mexico. Dating in the intervening areas is problematical, but it is generally accepted that fine metalwork in gold, silver, and copper did not reach the valley of Oaxaca in Mexico until about AD 900. Some finds in western Mexico suggest an earlier beginning date there and also that knowledge of the craft came by sea rather than overland from South America. (See Old Copper culture.)

It is said that the Spaniards saw some pre-Columbian goldwork when they first arrived in Florida, but none seems to have survived. Some pre-European North American copper work, however, has survived. Metalwork was limited to a few regions in pre-European times. The "Old Copper" culture people took advantage of deposits of native copper (as opposed to smelting copper ores) to make tools and implements, and at a later period the Hopewell people extensively made copper ornaments and weapons, produced by cold hammering. A few copper bells also have been found in Arizona Hohokam sites, but these are imports that were manufactured in Mexico.

Southwest Indian
The famed Indian silverwork in the southwestern United States did not begin until 1853, when the craft was introduced to the Navajo by Mexican smiths. Although the origin is Mexican, certain ornament types and modes of decoration among the Navajo, as one scholar points out, trace back to earlier Indian silverworking in the eastern woodland, the plains, and the Rocky Mountains. It was not until 1872 that the first Zuni smith learned the craft from the Navajo. The Zuni had been carving turquoise long before the introduction of silversmithing, so it is not surprising that the most prominent characteristic of Zuni work is the extravagant use of turquoise insets. Navajo work is distinguished by die-stamped designs, whereas die work is very rare in Zuni silver. Authentic Navajo and Zuni pieces are still being made, but the tourist market has been flooded with cheap, commercial imitations.
Modern
The outstanding centre for fine handwork in silver in the Western Hemisphere is the little village of Taxco in the state of Guerrero, Mexico. An American resident, William Spratling, revived the ancient craft there in 1931 and trained a whole generation of talented silversmiths.
(D.T.E.)

African Peoples
In Africa jewelry was fashioned from gold and silver as well as from nonprecious metals; heavy neck rings, anklets, and bracelets, for example, were made of forged iron or cast brass. Except for iron, metals were usually associated with prestige and/or leadership. Metals were also used for utilitarian objects such as Ashanti cast-brass weights (for weighing gold dust), which depict humans, other animals, vegetables, and geometric forms. The Nupe were excellent metalworkers, manufacturing a variety of vessels decorated with embossed designs.
Throwing knives of the Congo, often with punchwork designs, exemplify finely forged, abstract forms of iron weapons. Blacksmiths produced such ritual utensils as single or double gongs; Bambara, Dogon, and Lubi staffs topped with equestrian, human, and animal figures; and Yoruba and Benin shrine pieces containing mammal and bird forms.

Brass figure sculpture, which was cast by the lost-wax process, was usually the prerogative of royalty, as in Dahomey, and at Ife and Benin in Nigeria. Ife castings appear quite naturalistic and are among the finest sub-Saharan art. They are mostly hollow-cast heads, possibly used in ancestral rites. Benin "bronzes" were reported as early as the 16th century, but not until the 1890s did they become well-known in Europe. Local traditions indicate that the technique and the first caster came from Ife, in the 14th century. Predominant forms were heads representing deceased Benin kings, often supporting a carved ivory tusk. These, with other figurative castings as well as bells, were placed on altars that were dedicated to early kings. Figurative plaques were used as architectural decoration. Excellent thinly cast pieces, fairly close to the style of Ife, gave way to heavy, over decorated pieces of the later 19th century.

Although metals appear throughout Africa, the cast "bronzes" (often brass) of Nigeria are particularly noteworthy. The earliest, from Igbo Ukwu, may be as early as the 9th century, those of Ife as early as the 12th century; Benin castings are later, and those of the Yoruba most recent. Lower Niger Bronze Industries is a term referring to one or more as yet inadequately studied traditions of uncertain date from various places in southern Nigeria.

hh all jd

 

[Gypsy Heart]

Which proves my point exactly after reading this encyclopedia ......I was right ....seeker was wrong......are you keeping up here hon??

 

[Mona Lisa]

Seek, buddy, I'm sorry to say your "lead" object looks like a piece of petrified doggie doo. "Why does it ring up like lead?", you ask. Because the doggie swallowed a musket ball.

Now, my pal Gypsy, has something much more rare and fine....an ancient pewter/lead spoon handle worth millions of dollars maybe more.

 

[Gypsy Heart]

Seek, buddy, I'm sorry to say your "lead" object looks like a piece of petrified doggie doo. "Why does it ring up like lead?", you ask. Because the doggie swallowed a musket ball.

Now, my pal Gypsy, has something much more rare and fine....an ancient pewter/lead spoon handle worth millions of dollars maybe more.

And when I sell My rare and valuable spoon handle for a million or more........I am sharing it with everyone who voted for me......

 

[The Seeker]

Hey JD ....Thanks for the information on the History of Metaworking!!!! That is some great material for knowing the history and workings of different types of metal at different time periods through out history......So I will refer the Technology Education Web Site and Print that material for future reference!!!! But after all that said ! Did you vote!!!


Thanks for all the info !!!!!

 

[packerbacker]

Uhhhh.....I voted for Gypsy. Had a clinging chad problem.

 

[j.d. in the usa]

LMAO Seeker I totally forgot to vote I will do it now!!! hehehehe lol lol

man it is good info isnt it I saved it too!!

 

[Jerxs]

Boy thats alot to take in on one sitting! Thanks for the info J.D.

_________________________________________________

 

[The Seeker]

LMAO Seeker I totally forgot to vote I will do it now!!! hehehehe lol lol

man it is good info isnt it I saved it too!!

Thanks JD....Now that you got me hooked on the History of Metal.....I decided to look up the History of metal on Google and it gave me 28,000,000. sites....Yes 28 Million plus sites on Metal....How much info do we need....So that should keep the forum members busy for a while!!!!! Nice............ 8)

 

[nybuford]

Just a thought that sends this into another direction...
Gypsy's spoon end looks like the thumb "thingy" that lifts the top
of a beer Stein?
Not so much like Seekers petrified dog Poo encrusted musket ball!
You guys are too much...
Bu

 

[Smartin]

What was the question?

 

[Paul in WA]

is that a lead spoon in your pocket, or are you just happy to see us?............just kidding!

Before they figured out that lead is toxic, they use to use it to make most eating & cooking utensils...........spoons, cups, pots, and so on. The more they used it, the more people ended up with lead poisoning. It became so severe that people would go into a coma like sleep, and were often mistaken for being dead, and were actually buried alive. It was soon discovered that there were an alarming number of people being buried alive, so they started putting strings leading from the coffins, up to a bell mounted on a stick above the grave. This was so that if a person woke up from this coma like sleep, they could pull the string (which was tied to the wrist)to ring the bell so someone could dig them out. This is where the term "Dead Ringer" comes from.

so, yes, spoons use to be made out of lead........and that looks like a crudely made spoon handle to me. But, it is possible it isn't lead at all, has anyone checked to see if it is?

 

[Ilovetodig]

Since Gypsy has quoted my second favorite movie and is going to share her millions with everyone she wins my vote on this one. Sorry seeker.

 

[The Seeker]

I would like to thank the folks that voted and posted some interesting facts about the History of metal and their uses.....Thanks again!!!

 

[Smartin]

Seeker,

Sounds like you could have both? Who knows except maybe Gypsy. This probably has been my favorite post I've read. The history of metal evolution by JD is a great piece of material to refer to, as ID'ing things found by metal detectors sometimes requires more than just object recognition by form ,location and era.The friendly feud with Gypsy was quite entertaining as well. Sure you'll kiss and make-up or something like that! ( just a metaphor,nothing misleading intended).Keep up the great post>

Smartin

 

[Angela (Australia)]

Hello Seeker, the object at the tail end seems to have some porosity (air bubbles) which indicates that it has undergone change through heat. The undamaged end, although it appears to be a molten blob would mormally have a flattened side where it has either dropped on a surface. So my guess is the rounded shape was it's original shape from some artifact which I don't know what it is, which has been damaged, and not just a molten blob of lead. Half is its original shape, half has been damaged. We often find things like that here, but they often show a flattened spot. Just a guess.
HH Angela

 

[Gypsy Heart]

This has been an extremely fun thread.... I have the utmost respect for Seeker and value his oppinion very highly....we have now worked together on several research projects in which we agree on totallly......so this was a new thing to' totally disagree'........ I also know that everyone has a different viewpoint on what could possible be the same thing...
I guess the thing about Seeker that I like the best , is when he is wrong,( like now :P) he will stand up and take it like a man..... which I am sure in this case he will do so also!!!!
Thats just the kind of guy he is ... :P and I will probally get chocolate and daisies too..... What a gentleman hey?

 

[randall61]

thinking ......lead,kinda looks like a fishing wieght lol