Leadwork Part 6

For coins in lead see Gaetani and Fiscorni. For tokens and pilgrim badges, of which a great number have been found in the Seine, see _Gazette des Beaux Arts_, Vol. VI. and XVIII. Some of these remind us of the lead figures that, according to "Quentin Durward," Louis XI. wore in his hat. At the Guildhall there is a collection of hundreds of these small objects found in the Thames; most are of great delicacy, many very beautiful. There are, in the British Museum, little Greek objects, rings and toys, armlets of a snake pattern, and pierced ornaments for applying to other objects.

Other objects in the Kensington Museum are:--A small tankard only two and a half inches diameter but modelled with figures in low relief, it is German of the sixteenth or seventeenth century; a pair of little inkstands the circular drums modelled with foliage and projecting top and bottom rims, also German; and a square canister with panel of St.

George on each face.

Another is a beautiful little Gothic box of the fourteenth century. It is hexagonal, with three feet, a flat hinged cover has a sitting lion which forms the k.n.o.b, a slight relief of the Annunciation under a canopy, and two s.h.i.+elds of arms. Round the sides are delicate bands of foliage and Gothic lettering; it is three and a half inches high, and of cast lead. There are other portions of little Gothic boxes in the British Museum. At Gloucester Museum there is a square box of late fifteenth century work, the sides formed of four cast panels of lead, soldered at the angles. The panels all repeat the same relief of the dead Christ and the Virgin, right and left are the other two Marys, and the background bears the cross, crown, spears, dice, and all the implements of the Pa.s.sion.[23] Small canisters, and candlesticks the stems of which are formed of a little lead figure, were made quite recently.

[23] See _Antiquary_, Feb., 1893.

-- XIII. OF LEAD GLAZING.

This subject, in which lead is only secondary, has been treated so often by others in connection with gla.s.s that little more need be said here.

Already, when Theophilus wrote his treatise on the arts, some time from the tenth to the twelfth century, leaded glazing of coloured gla.s.s was practised much as we do it now, and he describes how the leads were cast with the two grooves for the gla.s.s and how it was put together on a table. Coloured gla.s.s windows were placed in the Basilica at Lyons in the fifth century, as described in the letters of Sidonius. From the thirteenth century there are crowds of examples of glazing wholly of white gla.s.s in which patterns are made by the arrangement of the leads.

In the cathedrals of north France, especially Bayeux, Coutances, Mantes, and through Brittany, most elaborate patterns of this kind fill the windows; not only diapers but interlacing bands, over and under in effect, and this in plain white gla.s.s. This method does not seem to have been followed here, where for the most part, unless in colour arrangements, the leading for church windows was in plain lozenges and parallelograms.

Later, however, in houses, pattern glazing, sometimes of an elaborate kind, is found, especially in the north of England, at Moreton Hall in Ches.h.i.+re, at Bramhall, and at Levens in Westmorland. In some parts the gla.s.s may not be more than a circle or diamond of an inch across.

These patterns have been amply treated in other places, and we may consider those that have a diapered pattern all over the light to belong rather to the gla.s.s than the lead. There are others, however, in which the lead lines are made still more important by being arranged in a single intricate panel to each light, the centre usually being charged with an heraldic device. Two simple examples are given in Figs. 39 and 40.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 39.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 40.]

There is one point to speak of in regard to the fretted patterns not usually noticed. The frets are sometimes leaded up so that the gla.s.s does not lie in one plane, but there is an intentional change, so that the faces of gla.s.s reflect the light differently in a uniform manner all over the window, the forward panes being some ? or inch in front of the plane of the inner ones and between them others are placed obliquely. This is best known in Holland, but a similar practice was followed at Levens in Westmorland.

Lozenges of lead pierced for ventilation, either one or several together, are sometimes found; they are cast with a delicate pattern, or cut in a lattice. Some of the best are in the museum of Fountains Abbey, others are at Ely and at Haddon. Fig. 41 is from a Surrey cottage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 41.]

-- XIV. OF LEAD STATUES.

The making of lead statues was frequent up to the end of the 18th century, and then more frequent than at any other time, to cease at once on the introduction of the Italian plaster model shops, which in the eyes of the connoisseurs of the time brought with them a time of purer taste, the taste whose G.o.d was the Apollo of the Belvidere.

These statues of lead were known to the ancients. There was one of Mamurius at Rome.[24]

[24] Fosbroke, _Ency. Antiq._

In the middle ages there were not only small cast lead figures like those around the font at Ashover and a figure from a crucifix now in the library of Wells Cathedral which is about 12 inches high, of 15th century work, but figures full size and more were also made; this was especially the case in France; these, however, were generally repousse.

In the garden of the Cluny Museum in Paris is a fine figure of St. John Evangelist, fully eight feet high; it is of early 14th century work, and looks as if it had stood at the central pier of a doorway.

At Moissac, in the south of France, is a most remarkable work of lead, a tomb, above which is a lead sarcophagus and several figures representing the entombment of Christ, who is being laid in the open coffin. It is 15th century work; the figures, six in all, are full of character and vigour like the wooden statuary of the time. It appears from a photograph to be cast in separate portions.

The figures formed by repousse usually serve as finials on the roof, or stand in niches of the fleche. In the great fleche at Amiens there are six figures as large as life, with other smaller figures of angels which hold emblems of the Pa.s.sion. M. Viollet-le-Duc says these figures were nearly always _embouties_ that is to say hammered out on a wooden model in portions, and soldered together. The artist had to be careful that the model should be thin and "dry" so the thickness of the lead should not make it too coa.r.s.e in the forms. Burges cites an account of 1514 of a payment to John Pothyn, sculptor, for having carved a prophet in walnut wood to serve as a mould and pattern to the lead-workers.

Sometimes the lead casing was put on with lapping joints, the skeleton frame being iron.

There are not now in England lead statues of any size executed during the middle ages; but magnificent figures of bronze cast by the _cire perdu_ method remain to us. The effigy of Queen Eleanor at Westminster cannot be matched in Europe.

The founder's art was carried to much perfection in Germany in the 15th and 16th centuries. Mr. Seymour Haden has in Hamps.h.i.+re a statue of a city herald of lead which formerly belonged to the great clock at Nuremburg.

Many statues of lead were set up in English towns after the earlier Renaissance, they are our national version of the bronze of Italy, a material which we used but little; such bronze statues as were cast here since the middle ages seem to have been the work of foreigners. Le Sieur, for instance, did the statue of Charles II. at Charing Cross, and many others. The statue of Queen Anne that was to surmount Gibbs'

proposed column in the Strand was ordered in Rome.

At Bristol there is a large Neptune of lead roughly modelled; the limbs are contorted with too much life and yet it is a decorative feature in the centre of a wide street. On the pedestal has been engraved a little history of the statue, an example that might be followed--"Neptune, cast and given A.D. 1588 by a citizen of Temple parish to commemorate the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Re-erected on its fourth site in 1872."

This seems to be a tradition unsubstantiated by record, but the time is not so remote that it may not as well be true, especially as the style of the figure would seem to agree with the date named. The story says that it was the gift of a plumber in the town, the metal being that of the captured s.h.i.+ps' pumps.

At Bungay in Suffolk there used to be a large statue at the Market Cross known as "Astraea."

One of the most interesting portrait statues in London, the Queen Anne at Queen Anne's Gate, Westminster, is of lead. The surface ornament on the robes is especially appropriate to the material. There is also in Golden Square a statue of George II. which seems to be nearly a repeat of the stone statue on Bloomsbury steeple; it suggested the statue in Fred Walker's picture, "The Harbour of Refuge."

There were also many full size equestrian statues founded in this metal, that of George I., until 1874 in Leicester Square, was one of these, and like the last it was brought from Canons, the celebrated house of the Duke of Chandos at Edgware, dismantled about 1747. The George I.

resembled Le Sieur's statue at Charing Cross and was known as the Golden Horse, for the whole was gilt, as many of the statues seem to have been at Canons, in that garden where, according to Pope, "The trees were clipped like statues--the statues thick as trees."

The statue of William of Orange at Dublin is another of these, and it is celebrated alike in political demonstrations and Catholic polemics.

Cardinal Newman wrote of it, "The very flower and cream of Protestantism used to glory in the statue of King William on College Green, Dublin, and though I cannot make any reference in print I recollect well what a shriek they raised some years ago when the figure was unhorsed. Some profane person one night applied gunpowder and blew the king right out of his saddle, and he was found by those who took interest in him, like Dagon, on the ground."

Yet another equestrian statue is that of Charles the Second at Edinburgh, set up by the magistrates of the city in Parliament Square, in honour of the restoration of the king. A writer in the _Athenaeum_ for April 13th, 1850, speaks of it as the "finest piece of statuary in Edinburgh," and urges the suitability of lead for the purpose. "In _Black's Guide through Edinburgh_ it is spoken of as the best specimen of bronze statuary which Edinburgh possesses; it is, however, composed of lead. Now this leaden equestrian statue has already without sensible deterioration stood the test of 165 years' (in 1850) exposure to the weather, and it still seems as fresh as if erected but yesterday." Some years before this, one of the interior irons having given way, a part of the shoulder sank a little and it was taken down and repaired and sufficiently proved to be lead. Taking the figures above, it appears that the date of this work is 1685.

Mr. James Nasmyth also wrote to the _Athenaeum_, June, 1850, "to confirm as a practical man the perfect fitness of lead" as a subst.i.tute for bronze, and to recommend the _cire perdu_ method of casting, at that time discontinued in England; the process being to model the statue in wax on a solid core, to cast in plaster the finished wax model, and then to melt out the wax from this plaster mould, the s.p.a.ce which it occupied being refilled with lead. Of course only one cast can be obtained in this way, whereas the old decorative statues spoken of later were cast in a piece mould and reproduced again and again.

"The addition (still quoting) of about five per cent. of antimony will give it not only greater hardness but enhance its capability to run into the most delicate details ... it is in every sense as durable as bronze when subject simply to atmospheric action."

We shall see that an addition of block tin was made to the lead by the old figure founders. Type metal, which is so much harder than lead, is an alloy of lead and to ? of antimony, or of two parts of lead to one of tin and one of antimony.

In the courtyard of Houghton Tower, Lancas.h.i.+re, there is a statue of William III. brought from the dismantled Walton-le-Dale in 1834.

The statues decorating the parapets of the large "cla.s.sic" country houses are at times of lead; there are five of these at Lyme in Ches.h.i.+re. Over the portico of the Clarendon at Oxford there are four of these statues representing the sciences. Until recently there was a figure of King James high up in a niche at the Bodleian.

The figures of the good little boy and girl common at charity schools are also often of lead. The great Percy lion that surmounted old Northumberland House at Charing Cross (destroyed twenty years ago) is now on the river front of Syon House; it weighs about three tons, and it was placed in its original position in 1749. The lion on the bridge at Alnwick is also of lead, as the little boy found to his cost who climbed out on its tail.

There are a series of lead busts in oval panels on the front of Ham House, Petersham, Surrey, 1610 being the date of its erection.

Before pa.s.sing into the garden a word on the practical details of casting as traditionally followed may be added. The casting of lead statues is much the same process as founding in bronze, but it is simpler from the much lower temperature at which lead flows, and the ease with which limbs can be cast separately and joined to the body. The technical details may be found in a text-book of modelling and casting--_Mouler en Platre, Plomb_, &c. (Lebrun, Paris, 1860). The course followed is to cut up the model in such parts as is determined, to mould these in loam, the cores are then cast in plaster after the thickness that will be occupied by the lead has been first applied to the moulds in sand (terre). The cores are then removed and dried and baked, for in this as in all founding everything depends on the absolute dryness of the mould. After the first mould had been added to, for the casting of the core, a second mould would be prepared from the original figure and the core supported in that by irons. The castings are then made, and the portions reunited and finished on the surface.

Large works have to be sufficiently supported with internal irons. All the mysteries of vents, and false coring when necessary, can only be understood by practical familiarity with founding.

Modern figures for Dundee were cast from plaster; cast iron also makes good moulds.

If the roof is the place for those earlier figures formed by repousse, the garden is rightly inhabited by cast lead statues. It is a material in which the designer might well permit himself slightness, caprice, or even triteness. A statue that would be tame in stone, or contemptible in marble, may well be a charming decoration if only in lead, set in the vista of a green walk against a dark yew hedge or broad-leaved fig, or where the lilac waves its plumes above them and the syringa thrusts its flowers under their arms and shakes its petals on the pedestal. "How charming it must be to walk in one's own garden, and sit on a bench in the open air with a fountain and a leaden statue and a rolling-stone and an arbour. Have a care though of sore throat and the _agoe_.[25]"

[25] Gray's _Letter from Pembroke Coll._, 1769.