Chats on Old Copper and BrassBurgess, Fred. W. (Frederick William)
History
Chats on Old Copper and Brass
Burgess, Fred. W. (Frederick William)
Brasses; Brasswork; Copper; Copperwork; Metal-work -- Collectors and collecting
Reference has already been made to the beautiful statuettes of Greece.
There are others, to many grand in their conceptions, the work of Roman
modellers, many representing Apollo, Hercules, Mars, and Mercury having
been found. In the British Museum there are some wonderfully striking
heads of several of the Emperors, and other men whose portraits
have been handed on to us in monuments of stone, and upon coins and
medallions, the die-sinkers of which so faithfully portrayed the men
they pictured. The names of many of the most famous artists are known,
and collectors rejoice over fresh examples of their handiwork. It is,
however, the general characteristics of the Roman worker in metal
as a whole that connoisseurs recognize and appreciate, and the true
connoisseur is always searching for some greater artist's work than he
has hitherto been familiar with. He is on the look-out for the very
best among art treasures.
An amusing story has been told of a modern manufacturer who was very
fond of inserting in his advertisements paragraphs calling attention
to his modern works of art, which he said were "acknowledged by
connoisseurs to be the best." "Father," said his little boy one day,
"what do you mean by a connoisseur?" "A connoisseur, my boy," answered
the manufacturer of copper goods, "is an eminent authority--an
authority, in short, who admits that _our_ goods are the best."
We are apt to look upon the beautiful brass grilles and copper
lock-plates of mediæval days as the earliest examples of these metals
in lock-making, the earliest locks found on old doors and muniment
chests being chiefly of iron. But when we go back to still earlier
times and examine the relics of Roman London, we find key-rings and
keys of bronze, some very ornamental, too. One beautiful little key
found near All Hallows Church has a bow terminating in a small spur.
Another bronze key found near St. Swithin's, in Cannon Street, has a
ridged annular bow, with a short square stem. Other keys are equally
decorative; the locks, too, are in many instances ornamental, although
in design and workmanship they fall short of the pinnacle of fame
reached by the lockmakers in later Gothic times.
Romano-British Art.
Many readers in searching for curios of the Romano-British period
in this country will recall the fact that the ancient Britons
possessed bronze; and doubtless we should be doing an injustice to
the more enlightened dwellers in Britain before Roman occupation, and
contemporary with it, if we did not admit that possibly some of the
relics of that period now dubbed Roman belonged to those more entitled
to our regard, for Albion was their native land.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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