Leadwork, Old and Ornamental and for the most part EnglishLethaby, W. R. (William Richard)
History
Leadwork, Old and Ornamental and for the most part English
Lethaby, W. R. (William Richard)
Leadwork
Already, when Theophilus wrote his treatise on the arts, some time from
the tenth to the twelfth century, leaded glazing of coloured glass was
practised much as we do it now, and he describes how the leads were cast
with the two grooves for the glass and how it was put together on a
table. Coloured glass 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 glass 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 glass. 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
Cheshire, at Bramhall, and at Levens in Westmorland. In some parts the
glass 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 glass 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.
[Illustration: FIG. 39.]
[Illustration: 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 glass
does not lie in one plane, but there is an intentional change, so that
the faces of glass reflect the light differently in a uniform manner all
over the window, the forward panes being some ⅓ or ¼ 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.
[Illustration: 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 god was the Apollo of the Belvidere.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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