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 repoussé. 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 repoussé usually serve as finials on the roof, or stand in niches of the flèche. In the great flèche at Amiens there are six figures as large as life, with other smaller figures of angels which hold emblems of the Passion. 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 coarse 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 Hampshire 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.