Part II
Bronze and Brass
Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. In the period of classical antiquity it had a low tin content, generally containing less than 10 percent, because tin was less common and therefore difficult to obtain. Like bronze, brass is an alloy, this time of copper plus zinc.
It is often very difficult to distinguish between bronze and brass merely by their appearance. The colour of the different alloys ranges over various shades from gold to a reddish tinge, to silvery, greenish, and yellowish shades, according to the proportions of the basic constituents. The patina on both alloys ranges from dark brown to a dark greenish tinge, particularly in the earliest pieces. Since it is often difficult to differentiate between bronze and brass with the naked eye and since metalworkers and metal casters of previous centuries did not make an express distinction between them, they will be considered together here. From a very early date bronze was used mainly for casting. Because it is so brittle, it has only rarely been hammered or chased; brass or copper were preferred for such work because they are more malleable. Down to the Middle Ages, bronze was cast by the cire perdue, or lost-wax, method. By this process, the mold can be used only once. This method of casting is the most exclusive, not only because it is the most expensive but also because it produces the finest work from the aesthetic point of view. Later, the casting process used models made up of a number of different pieces that could be taken apart and therefore re-used. These were generally made of wood and could be pressed down into a sand mold so that the shape of the object being cast emerged as a hollow. The hollow was then filled with molten bronze, which was poured in through casting ducts. When the resulting piece had been removed from the sand mold, the surface was smoothed over and the casting seams removed. The wooden model could then be used again to make as many copies as were required, which meant that economical production was possible. Brass was cast by the same methods but over and above this a process of hammering and chasing was used to fashion sheet brass. Brass platters were often decorated with relief work ornament, which was embossed from the reverse side by means of a type of die. The brass worker could also create an ornamental frieze made up of small motifs by using a series of punches made of iron. The surface of bronze or brass objects was also occasionally decorated with engraving.
(H.-U.H.)
Antiquity
Mesopotamia
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art is the bronze sword of King Adad-nirari I, a unique example from the palace of one of the early kings of the period (14th-13th century BC) during which Assyria first began to play a prominent part in Mesopotamian history. A magnificent example of Assyrian bronze embossed work is to be seen in the gates of Shalmaneser III (858-824 BC), erected to commemorate that king's campaigns. The gates were made of wood; and the bronze bands, embossed with a wealth of figures in relief, are only about 1/16 inch (1.6 millimetres) thick. The bands were obviously intended for decoration, not to strengthen the gates against attack.
Iran
The Persian bronze industry was also influenced by Mesopotamia. Luristan, near the western border of Persia (Iran), is the source of many bronzes that have been dated from 1500 to 500 BC and include chariot or harness fittings, rein rings, elaborate horse bits, and various decorative rings, as well as weapons, personal ornaments, different types of cult objects, and a number of household vessels. Many of these objects show a decided originality in the development of the animal style.
Egypt
The bronzes that have survived are mainly votive statues placed in the temples from the Saite to the Ptolemaic period (305-30 BC), and amuletic bronzes that were buried with the dead. In its simplest form the decoration consisted of lines, representing details of clothing, ornaments, and the like, cut in the bronze with engraving tools, sometimes also combined with gilding. A fine example of inlay work of the 22nd dynasty (945-c. 730 BC) is a bronze menat damascened with gold wire (Metropolitan Museum of Art).
Crete
A sword, found in the palace of Mallia and dated to the Middle Minoan period (2000-1600 BC), is an example of the extraordinary skill of the Cretan metalworker in casting bronze. The hilt of the sword is of gold-plated ivory and crystal. A dagger blade found in the Lasithi plain, dating about 1800 BC (Metropolitan Museum of Art), is the earliest known predecessor of ornamented dagger blades from Mycenae. It is engraved with two spirited scenes: a fight between two bulls and a man spearing a boar. Somewhat later (c. 1400 BC) are a series of splendid blades from mainland Greece, which must be attributed to Cretan craftsmen, with ornament in relief, incised, or inlaid with varicoloured metals, gold, silver, and niello. The most elaborate inlays--pictures of men hunting lions and of cats hunting birds--are on daggers from the shaft graves of Mycenae, Nilotic scenes showing Egyptian influence. The bronze was oxidized to a blackish-brown tint; the gold inlays were hammered in and polished and the details then engraved on them. The gold was in two colours, a deeper red being obtained by an admixture of copper; and there was a sparing use of neillo.(See Aegean civilization, Mycenaean civilization.)
Greece
The Greeks, who learned much about metalwork from the Egyptians, excelled in hammering, casting, embossing, chasing, engraving, soldering, and metal intaglio. Among the ancients, the great emphasis of technology was on aesthetic expression, not on practical utilization. Greek coin dies rank with the finest work of this kind that the world has ever seen. Pottery and bronze hammer-and-cast work were important crafts of ancient Greece. Vases of terra-cotta were often designed to resemble those of bronze, and both kinds were widely used in antiquity. Unlike terra-cotta, which is breakable but otherwise practically indestructible, bronze is subject to corrosion; and a surviving Greek bronze vase in good condition is therefore something of a rarity. The body of the vase, which was hammered out of a sheet of malleable bronze, was usually left plain; the handles, feet, and overhanging lip, which were cast, were decorated. The applied elements were rivetted or soldered.
It was in the time of Lysippus, the distinguished sculptor who flourished about 330 BC, that the fine Greek beaten work for decoration of armour, vases, and objects of domestic use reached its perfection. It was executed by a hammer worked from behind, the outlines being afterward emphasized by chisel or punch; or metal plate was beaten into a mold formed by carving the subject in intaglio upon a resisting material. The embossed shoulder straps of a cuirass, called the "Bronzes of Siris" (4th century BC; British Museum, London), are in exceedingly high relief and are beaten into form with wonderful skill with the hammer. The relief depicts the combat between the Greeks and the Amazons.
Greek bronze statuettes--originally dedicatory offerings in shrines, ornamental figures on utensils, or decorative works of art--have survived in large numbers. They were usually cast solid, rarely hollow. Sometimes even large statuettes were cast solid. (The advantage of solid casting is that the mold can be used repeatedly, whereas in the hollow-casting process the mold is destroyed.) Greek bronzes were originally golden and bright, and they were often decorated with silver or niello for colour contrast. Bronze statuary hardly existed before the introduction of hollow casting, about the middle of the 6th century BC, after which bronze became the most important medium of monumental sculpture; its strength and lightness admitted poses that could not be reproduced in stone.
Etruria
The Etruscans used bronze for cast and beaten work; and although few large works remain, the museums of Europe display a marvellous variety of admirably formed small bronzes. A masterpiece of bronze Etruscan sculpture is the "Chimera" (a mythological beast with a goat's body, a lion's head, and a serpent's tail) from Arezzo, a 5th-century BC ex-voto from a sacred building, found in 1553 and partly restored by Benvenuto Cellini (Museo Archeologico di Firenze). Etruscan bronze workers produced, often for export, votive statuettes, vessels, furniture, helmets, swords, lamps, candelabra, mirrors, and even chariots. An Etruscan chariot of c. 600 BC in the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a body and wheels of wood, sheathing of bronze, and tires of iron, the high front embossed with archaic figures of considerable grace. The Etruscans inlaid bronze with silver and gold in a manner that proves that their skill in this mode of enrichment equalled that of the Greeks and Romans. Many delicately engraved bronze objects were made in the Latin town of Praeneste (modern Palestrina), which possessed a highly developed bronze-working industry. From Praeneste came a remarkable cylindrical container of the late 4th century BC, now in the Villa Giulia, Rome; its richly engraved surface provides a good example of the perfection of ancient drawing.(See Chimera.)
Rome
Etruscan cities, like those of Greece, were crowded with bronze statues of gods and heroes; and Rome derived its best adornment from the pillage of Etruria and then of Greece. Distinctly Roman work is hard to trace, as the conquered Greeks worked for their masters, and the Romans copied wholesale from the Greeks. Temple statues were nearly always of bronze, but after about 190 BC the metal was chiefly used for architectural decorations and portraiture. The bronze doors of the Pantheon and of the Temple of Romulus in the Roman Forum still occupy their original positions. Two bronze doors in the Lateran Baptistery are supposed to have been brought from the Baths of Caracalla by Pope Hilarius in the 5th century. Also in the Lateran church are four fine gilt-bronze fluted Corinthian columns.
Much Roman small work was exceedingly fine, though it is generally conceded that Roman productions are less aesthetically attractive than those of the Greeks. Pompeii and Herculaneum were essentially Greek towns, and the many beautiful bronzes in the Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte, Naples, collected from the ruins of private houses there, are of Greek workmanship. These included statuettes, mirrors, and all kinds of bronze work useful in a house. Many of these pieces were originally attached to pieces of furniture.
During the closing years of the republic, brass, produced by what came later to be known as the calamine (zinc-carbonate) method, became an important material for the first time. Its various uses included parade armour, as may be seen in a Roman embossed brass helmet in the Castle Museum, Norwich, England.
Teutonic tribes
The Teutonic tribes who conquered and divided the Roman Empire were little versed in the monumental arts and unskilled in figure representation; but in metalworking, in the making of weapons and other utilitarian objects, and in the delicate ornament of the goldsmith's art they excelled. They were among the earliest in Western Europe to develop the use of enamel decoration on bronze in the champlev? technique.(See Germanic peoples, Roman Republic and Empire.)
Middle Ages: Byzantine Empire
Syria, Egypt, and Anatolia were first the teachers and then the rivals of Constantinople (Istanbul). The fusion of antique and Eastern elements resulted in the Byzantine style, the great period of which dates from the 9th to the end of the 12th century. The extensive use of embossed work, with filigree, cabochon gems, and small plaques of enamel, may be seen in both the East and the West during the early Middle Ages. The most conspicuous examples of large Byzantine metalwork are bronze church doors inlaid with silver. Many objects are still preserved in various European treasuries, which were enriched by the spoils of the sack of Constantinople in 1204. Venice, in the Treasury of St. Mark's, has an unrivalled series of Byzantine chalices, bookbindings, and other treasures of metalwork; but it is in Kiev, Moscow, and Leningrad that broadly representative series of all the categories of Byzantine artistic production may be found. (See San Marco Basilica.)
The art of bronze casting had been preserved in the Byzantine Empire. The first bronze doors to be made after the art had died out in Rome were those for Hagia Sophia at Constantinople, which bear the date 838; the panels, with monograms and other ornament damascened in silver, are framed in borders cast in relief and enriched with bosses and scrolls, the whole in an admirable style. Two sets of doors in St. Mark's, Venice, of Greek workmanship and considerable but uncertain antiquity, are supposed by some to have been removed from St. Mark's at Alexandria. Next in date among surviving doors of Byzantine workmanship is a series ordered by the Pantaleone family (about 1066-87) and destined for cities in southern Italy--Amalfi, Trani, Salerno, Canosa di Puglia, and Monte Sant'Angelo.
(S.V.G.)
Middle Ages: Islam
Animals in the Sasanian style--lions, dragons, sphinxes, peacocks, doves, cocks, and the like--were cast in bronze in three dimensions and served, like their ceramic counterparts, as basins, braziers, and so on. They were particularly sought after in the later Abbasid, Fatimid, and Seljuq periods, and from Egypt they became prototypes of similar European forms. It was the Seljuqs, apparently, who introduced a round bronze mirror, the reverse of which shows in low relief two sphinxes face to face, surrounded by a twined pattern, or two friezes with the astrological symbols of the seven chief heavenly bodies (Sun, Moon, and the five nearest planets) and the 12 signs of the zodiac, surrounded by a band of script; this goes back ultimately to Chinese origins.
Early vessels, such as mugs, were ornamented with animals in low relief, but engraving quickly supplanted this. Under the later Seljuqs (particularly the Artuqid atabegs of Mosul) and the Mamluks, engraving became almost the only form of decoration, but only to serve as a basis for the yet richer technique of inlaying, or damascening: small silver plates and wires, themselves delicately engraved, were hammered into the ribs and surfaces, which were hollowed out and undercut at the edges.
In place of this, in an Artuqid bowl in the provincial museum at Innsbruck the spaces are filled in with cellular enamel. This was a method of evading the prohibition of precious metals, just as gold lustre was in pottery. The ornament consisted of friezes and medallions in lattice work and arabesque work, the interstices being filled with figures of warriors, hunters, musicians, animals, and astrological symbols. These were superseded later by Mamluk coats of arms and inscriptions. In the 15th century the technique was imported from Syria to Venice, where productions of the same kind, alla damaschina or all'azzimina, were made right into the 16th century by Islamic masters and were in great demand. In the East the process is still common, but both technically and artistically it has decayed. (See enamelwork.)
In the 15th century there was a renaissance of pure metal engraving, but the design--inscriptions and arabesques in the Timurid and Safavid styles--was not cut into the material but left free in the manner of a relief, the background being etched in black. Decoration was applied to bowls, basins, mugs, vases, mortars, braziers, warming pans, candlesticks, smoking utensils, inkstands, jewel cases, Qur'an holders, and mosque lamps. These are generally in the simplest possible forms--spherical, cylindrical, prismatic; the subjects include motifs of vegetation and animal life, the former mainly in the necks and feet of vessels, the latter for handles and ears, feet, and sometimes small spouts.
(H.Go.)
Europe from the Middle Ages
After several centuries of artistic decline, the art of bronze casting was revived in c. 800 by Charlemagne, who had monumental bronze portals made for the Palatine Chapel in his residence in Aachen, with bronze grilles placed inside it. The artists, who probably came from Lombardy, followed the styles of classical antiquity. (See Carolingian art.)
For many centuries the Christian Church remained the bronze caster's chief patron. Like the stonemasons, who also were heavily patronized by the church, they joined together to form associations, or foundries. These casting foundries hired themselves out to the large ecclesiastical building sites. They cast bells--almost every church had at least one bell--and monumental doors decorated with relief work; for instance, doors for Mainz (c. 1000) and Hildesheim (1015) cathedrals, for the cathedrals at Gneissen and Augsburg (11th century), and for St. Zeno Maggiore in Verona (12th century). They also made large fonts, the most famous being the one made by Renier de Huy in 1107-18 for the church of Notre Dame aux Fonts in Li?ge (now in the church of St. Barth?lemy in Li?ge). The Dinant workshops, which formed the main centre for bronze casting in the Meuse district in the Middle Ages, specialized in what are known as "eagle lecterns." These are book stands with ornamental pedestals, with the panel supporting the enormous missals taking the form of the outspread wings of an eagle, a griffin, or a pelican. The earliest documented eagle lectern was made in 965, but the earliest example to have survived dates from 1372. It was made by Jean Joses of Dinant for the Church of Our Lady at Tongeren (Tongres), near Li?ge.
Records show that from the 11th to the 15th century there were more than 50 monumental seven-branched candlesticks (menorah) in various churches in Germany, England, France, Bohemia, and Italy, though only a few of these have survived. Documents relating to the Carolingian period speak of monumental bronze crucifixes and statues of the Virgin and of the saints, though the earliest surviving statues date from the 11th century; the crucifix in the abbey church at Werden, for example, dates from c. 1060 and was probably cast in a foundry in Lower Saxony.
Among the most outstanding examples of figurative bronze sculpture dating from the Romanesque period are a group of reliquaries designed in the shape of heads or heads and shoulders or occasionally arms, hands, or feet, according to the type of relics they contain. They were made in Lower Saxony or in France.
A few large chandeliers have survived from the 11th and 12th centuries, representing a sort of halfway stage between sculpture and functional objects. A far larger number are known to have existed from documents and contemporary accounts, but these have disappeared over the centuries. Examples from Germany, the southern half of the Low Countries, and France have survived or are documented. Romanesque chandeliers are always designed in the form of a crown. Candleholders, with architectonic structures and figures placed in between them, project from the crown.
Besides the monumental bronzes that have survived from the 8th to the 12th century, there are also a number of smaller pieces, such as processional crosses, altar crucifixes, chests, reliquaries, and similar articles. Another group of liturgical objects consists of candlesticks used to adorn altars. Their design often shows a wealth of invention, and they are decorated in the most sumptuous fashion. There was yet another group of candlesticks, which were secular in nature, that embodied the ideal of chivalry. They are cast in the shape of human figures: an armed warrior on horseback bearing a candleholder with a spike on which the candle is placed; a kneeling page in court dress holding a candle socket in his outstretched hands; or Samson perched on the lion's back, brandishing a candleholder. These candlestick figures are rare and precious examples of courtly life in the Romanesque period in Germany, France, England, and Scandinavia. Even at that time they were thought of as rare, deluxe articles within the reach of only a few privileged people.
Toward the end of the Romanesque period a simpler type of candlestick appeared, mainly intended for religious purposes, though they were found in private homes as well. They are circular, with a round base, a slender column-like shaft, and a large grease pan with a spike for the candle. This design exercised a strong influence throughout the Gothic period and right down to the Baroque period, though it varied considerably over the years according to the styles then prevailing.
Some of the finest bronze articles of the High Middle Ages were modelled on Oriental pieces brought back from the Holy Land by the crusaders. They are known as aquamaniles, a type of ewer used for pouring water for washing one's hands. Made by bronze casters in France, Germany, England, and Scandinavia, they are usually in the shape of lions--symbols of valour, pride, physical strength, and power. Also common are those shaped like knights in armour, with a wealth of courtly detail that was obviously popular. A few aquamaniles are in the shape of winged dragons, doves, cockerels, centaurs, or sirens; but such designs are rare. Christian themes, too, played a part, some examples depicting Samson overcoming the lion with his knee planted on its back. The golden age of these vessels was the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries. The end of the age of chivalry also saw a decline in such work, for the emergent bourgeoisie found other ways of marking the ceremony of hand washing.
Basins were also needed for washing one's hands; they are often mentioned in medieval documents, where they are referred to as bacina, pelves, or pelvicula. The majority of these bowls--which date from the 12th and 13th centuries--have been found in the cultural area that extends from the Baltic down to the Lower Rhine district and across to England. Because this area was once dominated by the Hanseatic League (a commercial association of free towns), the basins are known as Hanseatic bowls. They are round, some being more convex than others; and the inside is engraved with scenes from classical mythology, with themes from the Old and New Testaments and the legends of the saints, or with allegorical figures personifying the virtues and the vices, the liberal arts, the seasons, and so on. Hanseatic bowls were probably made in the bronze-casting centres where candlesticks and aquamaniles (and indeed all medieval cast bronze) were made: in the Meuse district and Lorraine, in Lower Saxony and the Harz Mountains, and also in England. The decoration on these bowls may have been added elsewhere.
In the Romanesque period and later, in the Gothic period, the churches and their patrons were still the bronze caster's main clients, ordering both functional objects and decorative pieces. Bronze fonts were relatively common in the 14th and 15th centuries, particularly in churches in northern Germany. Another common item, which was made mainly in England and in the Netherlands, was a large brass tombstone decorated with engraving. Other objects included door fittings, candlesticks, candelabra, chandeliers, pulpits, and sculptured tombs portraying the deceased.
Italy
Until the 12th century in Italy the art of bronze casting had been virtually neglected since the period of classical antiquity, when it had been a flourishing industry. A few churches in Italy have bronze doors inlaid with Byzantine niello work made by Byzantine craftsmen in the 11th and 12th centuries. The same technique was used by Bohemond I of Antioch for a bronze door at Canosa (1111) and by Oderisius of Benevento when casting a pair of doors for Troia Cathedral in 1119 and 1127. In the second half of the 12th century, however, Barisano da Trani made relief door panels for churches in Astrano, in Ravello (a town near Amalfi), and in Monreale. Bronze relief doors were also made in the 12th century for S. Paolo fuori le mura in Rome and for churches in northern Italy (S. Zeno Maggiore in Verona; St. Mark's in Venice) and Tuscany (Pisa and Monreale, by Bonanno of Pisa) and in the 13th century for the Baptistery in Florence, by Andrea Pisano.
Lorenzo Ghiberti's doors for the Baptistery in Florence, made in 1403-24 and 1425-52, marked the beginning of a golden age of bronze casting in Florence that lasted throughout the Renaissance and right down to the Baroque era. Whereas bronze sculpture had been relatively rare before the 15th century, many Italian artists of the Renaissance now designed cast bronze statues, statuettes, reliefs, and various objects in the shape of human figures. Among the sculptors who worked in full-scale bronzes were Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, Andrea del Verrocchio, Antonio Pollaiuolo, and Lucca della Robbia. Besides large-scale cast-bronze work there were also small figures, statuettes, busts, plaques, and functional objects such as candelabra, mortars, candlesticks, and inkwells. Dating from the middle of the 15th century onward, they are characterized by rich figural and ornamental design. Their style influenced work produced in northern Europe, particularly in the 16th century. (See "Gates of Paradise,".)
In the first half of the 16th century, bronze casting declined somewhat in Italy, though it found a new lease on life in the middle of the century and, indeed, became even more important than before. Benvenuto Cellini and Giovanni da Bologna are two of the most famous artists of this period. Cellini designed a number of statues, one of the best known being his "Perseus" in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, as well as portrait busts, reliefs, and smaller articles in bronze. Giovanna da Bologna, a Fleming by birth, was active in Rome and Florence, where he made fountains, equestrian monuments, allegorical figures, crucifixes, statuettes, groups of figures, animals, and many other objects. He founded a school of sculptors who were influenced by his work for many years. Many other bronze sculptors were active in the 16th and 17th centuries, notably in Venice, which was a particularly fruitful area for bronze casting, and at a school in Padua led by Andrea Riccio (Briosco). Italian bronze casters worked abroad as well as in their homeland, working on commission for foreign potentates, mainly in France and England.
In the 16th century, beautifully made bronze pieces, which were very much more than functional objects, played an important part in the art of the bronze caster. For instance, sumptuous mortars were designed and made by artists whose names have been handed down to posterity, such as Cavadini, Lenotti, Juliano da Navi, Alessandro Leopardi, Antonio Viteni, and Crescimbeni da Perugia. Elaborate brass dishes were made in Venice, under the influence of Eastern art (to which Venice had always been very receptive); indeed, the first people to produce these large dishes with engraved motifs were Islamic artists who had settled in the town, though the local artists soon adopted both their style and their technique.
Germany and the Low Countries
Unlike their Italian counterparts, 15th-century bronze artists in Germany and the Low Countries were still under the spell of Gothic art, and ecclesiastical implements predominated.
The Dinant workshops, in the Meuse district, continued to dominate production until well past the middle of the 15th century, just as they had since the days of Charlemagne. But when Philip III the Good, duke of Burgundy, laid siege to the town in 1466, then took it by storm and eventually completely destroyed it, the bronze casters who survived moved elsewhere, settling mainly in the Low Countries. As a result, from that date onward the trade enjoyed a sudden upsurge in Brussels and Namur, in Tournai and Bruges (Flemish Brugges), in Malines (Flemish Mechelen), Louvain (Flemish Leuven), and Middelburg. There was another centre of the bronze trade in Lower Saxony, since the mines in the Harz Mountains produced a generous supply of copper and calamine. The chief bronze-working towns in this area were Hildesheim, Goslar, and Minden. In the 16th century, a period when trade and commerce were developing very rapidly in Germany, the bronze-casting trade was no longer compelled to function close to the place where the raw material was extracted. Thus, N?rnberg, at this time the most powerful and lively town in Germany, not only traded in copper, bronze, and brass but also soon allowed its bronze casters and metalworkers to develop a flourishing industry. Brass articles from N?rnberg became famous throughout the world.
The earliest documented brass workers were those known as "basin-beaters" (Beckenschl?ger), who were first referred to as such in 1373. They made bowls and dishes with various types of relief decoration on the bottom. In the late Gothic period, religious themes were very popular for this decoration and were more common than secular images. During the Renaissance, beginning in about 1520, the design changed; instead of deep bowls there were large, flat dishes with decoration that consists of purely ornamental motifs or friezes as well as scenes and figures. The decoration includes the typically Gothic "fishbladder" design and also interlaced motifs and bands of lettering. The trade of the basin beaters continued to flourish in N?rnberg down to about 1550, when a decline set in, culminating in its eventual collapse just before the Thirty Years' War in 1618. The reason for this decline may have been the emergence of what is known as display pewter (see below Pewter), which, from about 1570 onward, swept the wealthy bourgeoisie market.
Until the Gothic era, bronze chandeliers were made solely for the churches; it was not until the 15th century that people began to consider lighting their homes by means of a central source of light hanging from the ceiling. In the Low Countries, one of the centres of the art of bronze casting, a type of chandelier was developed at this time that remained standard for many years. It is a type of hoop with a shaft, made up of a molded vertical centrepiece and a series of curving branches bearing drip trays and spikes. The arms, or branches, are decorated with tracery, foliage scrolls, and other motifs characteristic of the late Gothic style. In the middle of the 16th century, the central shaft took on the shape of a spherical baluster, with a large sphere jutting out just below the point where the curving arms branch off. This design continued to predominate in the Baroque period and is found as late as the 18th century. Because chandeliers of this type were most common in the Low Countries, one can assume that they originated there and were produced in large numbers and that they spread to England and Germany. Another centre was in Poland, presumably because brass founders had moved there from N?rnberg.
Besides these chandeliers--which until the 19th century were exclusive to court circles, the aristocracy, and the upper ranks of the bourgeoisie--there were also candlesticks. Their design was a later development of that used for altar candlesticks. The principle of a disk-shaped foot and a baluster shaft with a spike on top remained standard from the Middle Ages well into the 19th century, though the design of the individual components was affected by the styles current in any particular period. In Dinant and Flanders in the 15th century, for instance, the shaft began to be fashioned into the shape of a human figure. This style also became popular in Germany.
Whereas bronze sculpture reached its peak in Italy in the 15th century, monumental bronze figures were still rare in northern Europe at this time. Thus, the full-length equestrian statue of St. George (1373) on Hradcany Castle in Prague, which was cast by Martin and Georg von Klausenberg, did not set a trend, though rich figure decoration is often found on large fonts dating from the 13th to the 15th century. Engraved tombstones and entire tombs based on earlier traditions continued to be made until the late Gothic era (the beginning of the 16th century), as did tabernacles and lecterns.
The intellectual content of the Renaissance and the styles it engendered entered the world of the northern sculptors in the second decade of the 16th century. The N?rnberg workshop run by the Vischer family, which had been flourishing since the 15th century, continued to work in the late Gothic style until it had completed the St. Sebald's Shrine (1516), but shortly after this the style and intellectual concepts current in Italy were adopted by bronze casters in northern art centres as well. Small-scale bronze sculpture was particularly popular at this time, though some workshops were still casting monumental bronzes as late as the 18th century.
(H.-U.H.)
England
Casting in bronze reached high perfection in England during the Middle Ages. The most remarkable of the sanctuary rings, or knockers, that exist at Norwich and elsewhere is that on the north door of the nave of Durham cathedral, from the first half of the 12th century. The Gloucester candlestick (see photograph), in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, displays the power and imagination of the designer as well as an extraordinary manipulative skill on the part of the founder. According to its inscription, this candlestick, which stands about two feet (60 centimetres) high and is cast in bell metal and gilded, was made for Abbot Peter (the cathedral was originally an abbey church), who ruled early in the 12th century. While the outline is carefully preserved, the ornament consists of a mass of figures of monsters, birds, and men, mixed and intertwined to the verge of confusion. As a piece of casting, it is a triumph of technique.
There remain in England 10 effigies cast in bronze over a period of two centuries (1290-1518), among them some of the finest examples of figure work and metal casting to be found in Europe. In several instances, particulars for the contracts of the tombs survive, together with the names of the artists who designed and made them. The earliest examples are the effigies of Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward I (1290), and that of Henry III (1291), both in Westminster Abbey. They are the work of William Torel, goldsmith of London; and it is evident that they are the first English attempt to produce large figures in metal. Torel cast his large figures by the same process (lost-wax) he had employed for small shrines and images.
Monumental brasses were exceedingly numerous in England, where some 4,000 still exist. From the 13th through the 16th centuries, in France, northern Germany, Belgium, and particularly England, it became the vogue to set into the stone slab covering a floor tomb a brass plate engraved with the figure of the deceased. The art began in Flanders and Germany, and many of the English brasses were of foreign origin; in some cases, brass sheets were imported and engraved by English artists. The manufacture of unornamented brass plates centred chiefly at Cologne. The oldest English brass in existence is that of Sir John D'Abernon (died 1277) at Stoke d'Abernon, Surrey. Traces can still be seen in many brasses of the colours that originally enlivened them.
(S.V.G.)
France
In France, bronze was common from the late 16th century through the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, and it is still popular with French sculptors today. Eighteenth-century artists made use of ormolu, or fire gilding, for bronze articles such as candlesticks, brackets, and mounts for furniture. This tradition continued in France and, to a lesser extent, in the areas under French influence, until the Empire period in the early 19th century. Subdued classical designs executed in simple brass or in bronze, generally ungilded, are typical of the period following the reign of Napoleon.
The second quarter of the 19th century and, with it, the onset of industrialization, brought about a decline in bronze casting, as it did in all spheres of craftsmanship. The age of steel production now began. At the end of the 19th century, during the Art Nouveau period, attempts were made to revive the craft of casting bronze articles; but these did not have any lasting success. Bronze continued to be used by a few individual sculptors, however, throughout the 19th century and into the present day.
(H.-U.H.)
Part III next thread!!! hehe lol
And for everyones information...I asked seeker if mine could possibly be a pewter spoon or knife handle and that it resembled his piece of "whatever" and now look what this has lead (no pun intended) to. 
![:-\](https://www.treasurenet.com/smilies/undecided.gif "Undecided :-\")
.lol hh lohi
