The figures on several of the more ancient brasses are well drawn, and the folds of the drapery in the dresses of the females are, as a painter would say, “well cast;” and the faces occasionally display a considerable degree of correct and elevated expression. Many of the figures are of the size of life, marked with a hold outline well ploughed into the brass, and having the features, armour, and drapery indicated by single lines of greater or less strength as might be required. Attempts at shading are also occasionally to be met with; the effect being produced by means of lines obliquely crossing each other in the manner of cross-hatchings. Whether impressions were ever taken or not from such early brasses by the artists who executed them, it is perhaps now impossible to ascertain; but that they might do so is beyond a doubt, for it is now a common practice, and two immense volumes of impressions taken from monumental brasses, for the late Craven Ord, Esq., are preserved in the print-room of the British Museum. One of the finest monumental brasses known in this country is that of Robert Braunche and his two wives, in St. Margaret’s Church, Lynn, where it appears to have been placed about the year 1364. Braunche, and his two wives, one on each side of him, are represented standing, of the size of life. Above the figures are representations of five small niches surmounted by canopies in the florid Gothic style. In the centre niche is the figure of the Deity holding apparently the infant Christ in his arms. In each of the niches adjoining the centre one is an angel swinging a censer; and in the exterior niches are angels playing on musical instruments. At the sides are figures of saints, and at the foot there is a representation of a feast, where persons are seen seated at table, others playing on musical instruments, while a figure kneeling presents a peacock. The length of this brass is eight feet eleven inches, and its breadth five feet two inches. It is supposed to have been executed in Flanders, with which country at that period the town of Lynn was closely connected in the way of trade.[I-30] [Footnote I-30: An excellent representation of this celebrated monument is given in Cotman’s “Engravings from the most remarkable Sepulchral Brasses in Norfolk,” folio, 1819 (republished with considerable additions in 2 vols. folio, 1839).]