Antique Collecting: Enamels And Metalwork

Antique Collecting: Enamels and Metalwork

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Among Italian modellers may be mentioned: Donatello, Andrea Briosco (called Riccio), Jacopo Tatti (called Sansovino) and the Flemish-born Giovanni di Bologna. German makers include the Vischer family, and the French sculptors Falconet and Clodion often had their work cast in bronze. The Frenchman Guillaume Coustou modelled the figures of rearing horses, known as the Marly Horses, about 1745. They were made in bronze, and in metals imitating bronze, in very large numbers in the nineteenth century. A number of good bronzes were made in England in the eighteenth century, but little is known yet about them.

Chinese and Japanese bronzes of great age and great size have been made for many hundreds of years. In addition to figures there are some fifteenth-century bells at Pekin weighing about fifty-five tons each and standing fourteen feet high. Chinese bronze altar-vessels of the Shang-Yin (1766-1122 B.C.) and Chou dynasties (1122-249 B.C.) are particularly fine and rare. Most have been buried for many centuries, and contact with earth has resulted in corrosion of the surface. Inevitably, these bronzes have been copied at later dates, but the true patina (ageing of the surface) presents a very difficult problem to the faker and it is one that is seldom solved with success.

Mention must be made of the very many fine bronze figures made in India and Siam (Thailand) in the sixteenth century A.D. and earlier. Some of the latter are gilt, and most are remarkably beautiful. The finer examples remain in the East or are in Western museums, but a few appear on the market from time to time. Reasonably good examples can sometimes be bought quite cheaply.

In west Africa, the skilful bronze and brass workers of the kingdom of Benin perhaps learned their craft from the Portuguese, with whom they had traded from the late fifteenth century. Their work is highly individual and much is very beautiful, but it is scarce and good specimens are obtainable only rarely. Examples were brought to Europe by a British punitive expedition which captured Benin city in 1897, and there are fine collections from this source at the British Museum, the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Farnham, Dorset, the Museum of Primitive Art, New York, and in the possession of the Government of Nigeria.

Brass

The most popular surviving form of brassware is probably the domestic candlestick. These were made usually in pairs, and are rarely older than the middle of the seventeenth century. At that time they were on domed circular bases, with a pan to catch drips of wax halfway up the stout central column. Early in the eighteenth century, shaped bases and tall stems with grease-pans at the very top came into fashion. With variations from time to time, this style continued in use until the candle was no longer the principal illuminant in the home.

Brass was made into dishes of various sizes, often with em¬bossed designs of Biblical scenes with inscriptions on the borders. These are sometimes still to be seen in use as alms-dishes in churches.

Chandeliers of brass with curved branching arms were made in England and also on the Continent. Many of them date from the seventeenth century, but most have been made more recently in response to continual demand.

Ormolu

This is the French name (literally or moulu, moulded gold) for articles and furniture mounts made of bronze and gilded. The piece having been made in bronze, was carefully and finely finished by chiselling and polishing and then coated with a mixture of mercury and gold. This amalgam was subjected to heat and the mercury evaporated leaving the gold deposited on the surface. Finally, the gold was burnished where required, or left matt.

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