Part 4

For sepulchral use lead is especially fitted; it was customary in the twelfth century to inscribe a tablet or cross and to place it in the coffin on the breast of the dead.

In the Museum at Bruges there is a tablet with a long inscription to Gunilda the sister of Harold.[18] Two were found at Canterbury of the thirteenth century with lines of beautifully drawn Lombard capitals in incised outline with lines ruled between each row.[19]

[18] _Archæologia_, xxv.

[19] _Ibid._ xlv.

In 1838 was discovered in Rouen Cathedral choir the heart casket of Lion-hearted Richard, there were two boxes, one within the other, the inner one, covered inside with thin silver leaf, was inscribed with the simple words given in Fig. 32 from _Archæologia_ (xxix).

A cruciform tablet is given in Camden[20] with an inscription purporting to record King Arthur; the form shows that it was made in the twelfth century. In the fifteenth century Chronicle of Capgrave, under the year 1170, he writes--“In these days was Arthures body founde in the cherch yerd at Glaskinbury in a hol hok, a crosse of led leyd to a ston and the letteris hid betwyx the ston and the led.” He gives Giraldus, “whech red it,” as his authority. Giraldus Cambrensis gives the inscription as “Hic jacet sepultus inclytus Rex Arthurus cum Wennevereia uxore sua secunda in Insula Avalonia.”[21]

[20] Folio, plate v. vol. i.

[21] Capgrave, in Rolls Series.

Now William of Malmesbury, who died about 1145, says distinctly that the tomb of Arthur had never been found, so this dates the fabrication of this cross by the monks of Glastonbury always so especially greedy of relics, as within a year or two of this time when Giraldus saw it (“quam nos quoque vidimus”). The inscription on the lead cross engraved by Camden agrees word for word with the exception of “with Guenevere his second wife.” Must we not suppose that Giraldus here improved even upon the monks, and added this poetic touch himself?

Few of these absolution crosses have been found abroad; one discovered in Perigord was inscribed on the arms LVX . PAX . REX . LEX.

Wall tablets in churches are represented by one at Burford in Shropshire, the monument of Lady Corbett, 1516. Her effigy is incised under a canopy much like the brasses of the same time, and it suggests simple decorative possibilities, such as filling cavities with mastics of several colours, parcel gilding, damascening in brass wire, or inlay of metal on metal.

In Saltash Church, Cornwall, a lead tablet records that “This Chapple was repaired in the Mairty of Matthew Veale, Gent. Anno 1689.”

Inscriptions may be either cast with raised letters, engraved like the early ones, or punched. Ornamental borders might also be made up of punched lines, loops and dots.

Of Coat Arms there was an instance at Jacques Cœur’s house in Bourges, which is quite a lead mine. The Angel shield bearer alone remains, with signs of the erasure of the arms. In London, about Copthall Buildings, in the City, are several tablets with the arms of the “Armorers Brasiers,” as also a large number of shields of cast lead with dates and initials or names of the City wards. The insurance companies also used shields of stamped lead.

In Vere Street, Clare Market, over the angle of what is at present a baker’s shop, there is a panel with two negroes’ heads in relief, and the legend “S. W. M. 1715.”

We began with a foundation inscription, we will conclude with one twenty-six centuries later. This is a large cast plate of lead 3.6 by 2.4 and an inch thick, now preserved in the Guildhall Museum, which was laid in the foundation of old Blackfriars, then Pitt Bridge:--

“On the last day of October in the year 1760 and in the beginning of the most auspicious reign of George III., Sir Thomas Chitty, Knight, Lord Mayor, laid the first stone of this bridge undertaken by the Common Council of London (in the height of an extensive war) for the public accommodation and ornament of the city (Robert Milne being the architect) and that there may remain to posterity a monument of this city’s affection to the man who by the strength of his genius, the steadiness of his mind, and a kind of happy contagion of his probity and spirit, under the divine favour and fortunate auspices of George II., recovered, augmented and secured the British Empire in Asia, Africa, and America, and restored the ancient reputation and influence of his country amongst the nations of Europe.

“The Citizens of London have unanimously voted this bridge to be inscribed with the name of William Pitt.”

§ X. OF THE DECORATION OF LEAD.

One of the most usual methods of decorating lead was to gild it; whole domes were gilt in this way. The dome of St. Sophia at Constantinople seems to have been so treated, and the great arc of gold dominating such an Eastern city must have been a most impressive sight. Many of the late domes are partly gilt, as at the Invalides in Paris. The roof of the ancient basilica at Tours is said to have been like “a mountain of gold.”

Old recipe books of the last century give instructions for gilding lead. The following are examples:--

“Take two pounds of yellow ochre, half a pound of red lead, and one ounce of varnish, with which grind your ochre, but the red lead grind with oil; temper them both together; lay your ground with this upon the lead, and when it is almost dry, lay your gold; let it be thoroughly dry before you polish it.”

For another ground--“Take varnish of linseed oil, red lead, white lead and turpentine; boil in a pipkin and grind together on a stone.”

“Or take sheets of tinfoil, and grind them in common gold size; with this wipe your pewter or lead over; lay on your leaf gold and press it with cotton; it is a fine gilding, and has a beautiful lustre.”

Dutch metal was also used on a ground of varnish and red lead, as in second recipe; or gilt leaves of tinfoil on white lead ground in linseed oil, this last took a polish “as if it had been gilded in fire.” Dutch metal should be lacquered on the surface. A cheap substitute for gilding could doubtless be made for large surfaces by laying tinfoil lacquered gold colour. Or for statues the surface of the lead might be made bright and lacquered.

The external gilding on the Ste. Chapelle in Paris was done in leaf gold on two coats of varnish.

Smaller decorative objects of lead in the middle ages were often entirely gilt or parcel gilt in patterns; for instance, in an inventory of 1553 we find an altar cross “of lead florysshed withe golde foyle.” The effect of silver is obtained by “tinning” with solder, and when this is intended to form patterns on the surface of the lead the method is thus described by Burges. The surface is coated with lamp black mixed with size; the pattern is either transferred on it or drawn direct and then marked round with a point; all the part to be tinned has the surface removed by a “shave hook” so as to leave the pattern quite bright, a little sweet oil is rubbed over this and the solder is applied and spread in the usual way of soldering with a “copper bit.” This is more conveniently done in the shop, but the spire at Chalons was decorated in this way long after the lead covering was finished. A specimen of this work prepared by Burges may be seen in the Architectural Museum, Westminster.

Transparent colour was often applied over this tinning, which, shining through, gave it lustre; or the tinning alternated with the colour as in chevrons of tin and blue and red. We may suppose that this sort of work was done in England, for some leaded spires shown in the paintings at St. Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster, were coloured vermilion and gold, or green and white, in chevrons following the leading.

Stow also tells us that at the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem, Clerkenwell, rebuilt after a fire in 1381, there was a steeple decorated in this way which remained to his day and was then destroyed. “The great bell tower, a most curious piece of workmanship, graven, gilt, and enamelled, to the great beautifying of the city, and passing all others that I have seen.”

Rain-pipe heads at Knole have patterns formed in this way by bright tin applied to the surface. There are also heads of water pipes at the Bodleian and at St. John’s College, Oxford (see Figs. 71 and 72), treated all over with patterns of chequers and zig-zags. Those at St. John’s have cast coats of arms in wreaths brightly emblazoned in gold and colours. The collars to the pipes are painted with patterns, as also are some pipes at Framlingham, Suffolk.

Sometimes the pattern was incised on the lead in deep broad lines, and these, when filled with black mastic, traced the pattern without any tinning. An example of this method is found in a ridge and finial sketched at Bourges--the hearts and scallop shell were badges of Jacques Cœur. Other portions of the lead work at this house are decorated by patterns in lamp-black painted on the lead. See the ridge and examples of flashings drawn in Figures 36 and 37. A ridge designed for St. Vincent’s Church at Rouen, of which a drawing is preserved, is a beautiful instance of this treatment; it is divided into lengths in which branches with leaves and flowers alternate with a stiffer pattern. The spire before spoken of, at Chalons-sur-Marne, furnishes the finest example of these methods used in combination. See drawings in _Builder_, 1856, and in the sketch book of the Architectural Association for 1883, both by Burges. This decoration is of the fourteenth century and is thus described by Viollet-le-Duc:--“The sheets of lead were engraved in outlines and filled in with black material, of which traces may yet be seen. Painting and gilding illuminated the spaces between these black lines, and we must observe that nearly all the leadwork of the middle ages was thus decorated by paintings applied to the metal by means of an energetic mordant. The plumber’s art of the middle ages is wrought out like colossal goldsmith’s work, and we have found striking correspondence between the two arts as well in the methods of application as in the forms admitted: gilding and applied colour here replace enamel.” The design is of tabernacle work with figures and the whole was clearly intended to recall a shrine of goldsmith’s work. Large engraved patterns filled with black used alone on the silvery lead become great _niellos_, exactly parallel to the method of treating silver.

The flèche called “the golden” at Amiens retains traces of arabesque patterns on grounds of bright blue and vermilion.

Repoussé by hammering, another method most appropriate to the material, was more used in France than with us, where casting has been throughout the chief means for obtaining relief decoration. In France the finials were mostly formed in this way. “Recalling the best goldsmith’s work of the epoch,” withal so easily and carelessly wrought that it is plain that they were done at once without pattern and yet with ample knowledge of the ultimate form desired; so a leaf cut out of a sheet is hammered and twisted till it cups and curls itself into living grace.

In these finials applied castings were also used, and at the end of the fifteenth century they superseded repoussé for a time. Many of the moulds in stone and plaster, for the ornaments which were used on the roofs and finials at Beaune are preserved. The castings were not so free and decorative however as those done by repoussé.

Of piercing into delicate tracery the pipe-heads at Haddon give many charming examples. At Aston Hall, Warwickshire, the curved lead roofs of the turrets have all round the eaves a brattishing of pierced sheet in simple scroll work, it stands up freely and gives a dainty finish: the pattern is something like that above. In the East pierced valances of this kind are very general; the roofs of the larger fountains at Constantinople are usually finished in this way. Fig. 38 is from the portico roof of the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem drawn from a photograph. Casting and piercing were also combined, the pattern being strengthened thus by ribs and the veins, and interspaces being cut away.

In small Japanese work brass is sometimes inlaid into lead or pewter in the form of flowers, which are further defined by surface engraving. Engraving on sheet lead similar to the old memorial brasses has been mentioned before, and we may go on to look at the decorative processes in which lead was used applied to other materials.

§ XI. OF LEAD ORNAMENTATION OF OTHER MATERIALS.

Lead trappings and appendages have often been applied to stone statues. The sceptres and bishops’ crosses of the fine fourteenth century statues of St. Mary’s spire at Oxford are of wrought lead. The leaves of the sceptre heads and the crosses are embossed out in two pieces and then soldered at the edges.

Inlaying of lead in stone slabs making grisaille designs was a method much used--a magnificent example remains in the pavement at St. Remy, Rheims (formerly in the choir of St. Nicaise in the same town), where foliated panels with figure subjects from Scripture are made out on the stones; it is a work of the early fourteenth century.[22] We have in England an example of this treatment in a tomb slab at St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, and there is mention of the process in the account by William of Malmesbury of the Saxon part of the “Ealde Chirche” at Glastonbury. We may well suppose this was an imitation in the national material of Roman mosaic. The floor was “inlaid with polished stone ... moreover in the pavement may be remarked on every side stone designedly _interlaid in triangles and squares and figured with lead_, under which if I believe some sacred enigma to be contained I do no injustice to religion. The antiquity and multitude of its saints have endowed the place with so much sanctity that at night scarcely anyone presumes to keep vigil there or during the day to spit upon its floor ... and certainly the more magnificent the ornaments of churches are the more they incline the brute mind to prayer and bend the stubborn to supplication.”

[22] _See_ Viollet-le-Duc, “Dallage.”

The method is still followed in lettering on tombs and the like: the design is engraved in the marble and holes are drilled with a bow drill in the sunk parts, some inclined at an angle to give a better hold; strips of lead of sufficient substance are then hammered into the casements with a wooden mallet, and the superfluous metal removed with a sharp chisel.

Some of the sixteenth and seventeenth century engraved brasses have portions of the arms, etc., inlaid in lead in the brass; there are instances of this in Westminster Abbey. Lead might also be inlaid in cast iron with good effect, where it has not to be painted: the recesses would be left in the casting of either cast brass or cast iron. The stars that spangle the ceilings of churches on a blue ground are usually of cast lead gilt. The ceiling of the well-known panel and rib kind attributed to Holbein at the Chapel Royal, St. James’s had the enrichments in the panels of lead. Chimney-pieces were also decorated in the same way, and even furniture is found at times with applied badges of gilt lead. These methods it must be understood are not all recommended here, they are only recorded.

The delicate applied enrichments so much used in work influenced by the practice of the Brothers Adam are in the best work of lead; cast with extraordinary delicacy in relief figure panels, after the manner of the antique, or fragile garlands, vases, and frets. Much of this work was used in the internal decoration at Somerset House. The accounts under 1780 show payments to Edward Watson--for lead pateras from 2½_d._ to 10_d._ each; nineteen ornamental friezes to chimney pieces £10 17_s._ 8_d._; lead frieze to the bookcases in the Royal Academy Library at 2_s._ 6_d._ per foot; 137 feet run of large lead frieze in the exhibition room at 4_s._ Dutch bracket clocks of the eighteenth century have pierced and gilt ornamentations of lead.

This method of applying pierced lead to wood was known in the middle ages. In the Kensington Museum there is a delicate openwork panel, three inches square, which with others, decorated the front of a fourteenth century chest in the church at Newport, Essex. A beautiful little panel of open work, which contains the subject of the Annunciation, was found some years since in the Thames. One of the last instances of this decorative use of lead is on the great doors of Inwood’s church, at St. Pancras, where the panels are filled with reliefs and the margins have the palmette border. At Christchurch, Hampshire, some of the tracery panels at the back of the stalls have been replaced in lead.

The front door fanlights so well known in the London houses of the eighteenth century were made by applying lead castings to a backing of iron. Even staircase balustrades were cast in panels of lattice work of hard lead and fixed between iron standards some three or four feet apart.

§ XII. OF DECORATIVE OBJECTS.

A great number of small objects in lead are in our museums, and first we should mention the medals and plaques of the great masters of the Renaissance. Lead will cast with more delicacy than any other material, and Cellini especially recommended it for proofs. The proofs of the great work of the medallists,--the modelling just a film, fading into the background--presentments and allegories of the Malatestas and Gonzagas by Pisanello and Sperandio, are certainly the most precious things ever formed in lead. There are a great number of these medals and decorative plaques in the British Museum and at Kensington.

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 knob, a slight relief of the Annunciation under a canopy, and two shields 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 Passion.[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 glass 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 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.

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.

§ 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.

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.