V.

Types of Metalwork

The shape, function, and appearance of metalwork are determined in large part by the type of metal used. The precious metals (gold and silver) share these characteristics; the base metals (copper, tin, lead, and iron) and their alloys (bronze, brass, and pewter) may differ widely in their characteristics. In metalwork of the Renaissance and after, however, these characteristics may overlap; this happened, for instance, when wrought iron was worked with exquisite refinement in 17th- and 18th-century Europe.

A.

Gold

Gold dust and small gold nuggets are found in many areas of the earth, either on the surface of the land or in streams and shallow rivers. Presumably, its beauty of color and relative softness made it attractive for ornament or for religious purposes from primeval times.

A.1.

Gold in the Ancient World

The earliest formed gold objects, however, are small beads found in prehistoric graves in Egypt, which may date from before the 6th millennium bc. Gold was plentiful in Egypt's desert areas between the border of cultivation on the east bank of the Nile and the Red Sea and also to the south of Egypt in Nubia. A rather comprehensive picture of Egyptian goldwork over the 4000 years of its history has been obtained through the excavation of many sites during the past 200 years. Gold was reserved for the use of the kings in the Old Kingdom (2575-2134 bc) and for the nobility and priesthood in later periods. It was used for jewelry, including head ornaments, large pectorals (collar necklaces), rings, earrings, and bracelets, and special funerary equipment, including all of the above as well as toe- and finger-guards and ceremonial sandals. Gold was also used for the decoration of insignia of kingly power—the flail, the scepter, and the throne—as well as for drinking cups and such personal weapons as daggers. The solid gold coffin (1323? bc, Egyptian Museum, Cairo) discovered (1922) in the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamun and weighing 1128.5 kg (2448 lb) is proof of the abundance of gold available by the time of the 18th dynasty. The Romans who made contact with Egypt under Cleopatra in the 1st century bc were amazed at her wealth, represented by quantities of gold utensils and ornaments and by the plethora of luxury crafts practiced at Alexandria, including perfumery, elaborate glassblowing and glass cutting, and, of course, goldsmith's work. When Egypt became a Roman province, many of these luxury arts were carried to Rome and especially to Pompeii by migrating craftsmen.

The use of gold in the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations of Sumer, Babylon, and Assyria and later those of Syria and Persia (present-day Iran), as well as the succeeding powers in Anatolia and Greece, paralleled that of Egypt, although each culture had its own distinct artistic style. Gold was also owned by the great chieftains of the nomadic Scythian tribes who roamed areas stretching from the lower Danube basin in Europe to eastern Kazakhstan in Central Asia. Through their trading contacts with settled peoples to the south, they obtained a great deal of gold that was elaborately worked into large ornaments—such as neck torques—and such personal objects as drinking bowls and daggers.

A.2.

European Gold

The restrictive use of gold practiced in the ancient world was continued in the Roman and subsequent Byzantine empires and in the European kingdoms that were their successors; the same restrictions on its use were perpetuated in the European colonies and settlements that were to become the modern sovereign states in North and South America, South Africa, and Australia. It is still reserved for religious objects, state regalia—especially crowns, scepters and seals—for marriage rings and personal jewelry, and for prizes and trophies.

Gold still commands a deep, almost reverent respect. The great enameled gold salt (1540-1543, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) wrought by Benvenuto Cellini for Francis I of France was not an egregious use of the metal, for at the time salt was still considered a precious commodity of almost mystical importance. Where it was impractical to make domestic pieces in solid gold—such as drinking cups, which would be too heavy and too easily scratched or dented—it was common practice in Europe for many centuries to gild silver vessels. Kings, princes, and religious or civil potentates, however, might still use pure gold pieces, such as cups or chalices, on high ceremonial occasions.

A.3.

Gold in Africa and the New World

Similar restrictions were observed in the seaboard kingdoms of West Africa contacted by the exploring Portuguese in the 15th century. Gold was reserved for the use of chieftains and nobility, not so much for reasons of vanity or self-importance, but because its mystical attraction and power should only be available to a consecrated individual or an elite caste. The Spanish conquerors of Mexico and the South American empires were amazed at the superabundance of gold, as well as the absence of greed in its owners. Gold was used for religious and ceremonial artifacts, often of great size and solidity, but it was its color—in these sun-worshiping cultures—that was prized, not its monetary or bargaining value. The German Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer, who saw gold and other treasures from the New World during his stay in Antwerp in 1521, was particularly struck by the unusual forms and artistry of the goldwork; he recorded his appreciation of their beauty, even though they were wrought in an artistic idiom that was totally alien to European art.

A.4.

Chinese Gold

Silk merchants of the Earlier Han dynasty (206 bc-ad 220) required payment in gold from the intermediaries catering to the Roman luxury trade. Apparently, the Chinese were reluctant to disturb the earth's spirits by mining. Gold was used in small quantities—mostly for inlay—in the late Zhou (Chou) period (c. 500-250 bc), which probably came from native gold nuggets. Whenever contacts with the West were maintained, however, large amounts of both silver and gold reached China and were wrought with characteristic refinement. The periods of contact were the Han, Tang (T’ang), late Yuan (Yüan), Ming, and Qing (Ch’ing) dynasties. Goldwork of the Han dynasty is especially fine; it included granulation, learned from Western models, and lost-wax castings (see Cire Perdue), a technique long practiced in China for bronzes. Most characteristic of the Ming period are the delicate openwork head ornaments and tiaras, often decorated with filigree and with jewels held on wires that trembled as the wearer moved.

B.

Silver

In the region called Pontus in ancient times, fronting the southern coast of the Black Sea of what is now eastern Turkey, silver began to be produced by smelting galena, an ore containing lead with a small proportion of silver. This development was subsequent to the first smelting of copper ores farther to the east; it may, however, have followed quite close upon it, for galena ore sparkles with visible promise. Migrating copper smelters may have been the first to recognize its metallic potential. The discovery that lead ultimately will burn away during a protracted roasting, leaving a small globule of silver, was probably accidental.

B.1.

Silver in the Ancient World

The deliberate extraction of silver from lead was apparently mastered by the end of the 3rd millennium bc. Found in the royal graves at Ur were silver objects containing varying proportions of lead, fashioned with the same techniques used for gold and copper. In the Sumerian and succeeding civilizations in the Middle East, silver was restricted to the same uses and classes as gold. In the 2nd millennium, however, it was also allotted by temple priests to certain merchants for buying larger quantities of copper abroad, and small pieces of silver in standard weights came to have a set value. Coinage was a final step in this process. Silver remained a restricted material until the late Roman Republic (to 27 bc) when the huge quantities of silver available to Rome made it a vehicle for trade, wealth, and the ostentation of wealth. Many classes in the Roman Empire, including wealthy freed slaves, might own cups, spoons, wine vessels, even tables and bathtubs in solid silver, often elaborately ornamented with repoussé and cast decoration.

B.2.

European Silver

During the early Middle Ages in Europe, silver was in short supply, although many of the early kingdoms minted a silver currency; chalices, gospel covers, and other liturgical equipment were customarily provided for church use. Silver mines in Austria and Germany provided most of the new silver of the Middle Ages, augmented after about 1550 by silver coming from Spanish mines in South America. Silver became available for large issues of currency and ultimately for private ownership in the form of reserved coins or a great variety of domestic utensils. Silver spoons or silver-edged wooden drinking bowls were modest items an individual might own, but wealthier persons would hold and express much of their reserve capital in salts, serving dishes, plates, beakers, and elaborate covered cups. By the 17th century in Europe, the notion of table silver had taken a firm hold, and for a brief period toward the end of the century, silver lighting fixtures, orange-tree tubs, and silver-mounted furniture were so popular that a scarcity of silver resulted. Silver thereafter came to be restricted generally to eating and drinking utensils; in the 19th century, silver serving pieces such as tureens, tea and coffee sets, candlesticks, and centerpieces became popular. In the modern era, even these tend to be of silver substitutes such as stainless steel or of silver-plated base metals, since nearly all mined silver is consumed in industrial processes. Silver was also used by European artists for religious and secular statues, figures, and ornaments for many centuries. Today, silver is once again being used for individual works by a growing number of silversmiths.

B.3.

Chinese Silver

In the Far East, during the Tang dynasty in China and again after unbroken contact with the West was established in the 16th century, trade goods were sold for European bullion or coinage, and good use was made of this windfall of precious metal. The silver cups, bowls, and dishes of the Tang dynasty in particular were worked with engraved and gold-leaf designs of outstanding beauty.

C.

Bronze

The production of bronze by mixing copper and tin was an established practice by about 1500 bc throughout the Eurasian landmass. The small amounts of primitive bronze found in the early Sumerian graves probably resulted from the smelting of relatively rare naturally mixed ores. Tin and copper ores, however, were plentiful in Europe; most authorities agree that, although copper smelting was widely practiced (presumably through contacts with the Middle East), by the end of the 3rd millennium bc tin ores and copper ores were being smelted together to produce what was recognized as a superior form of copper—more fluid when hot and harder when cold. Bronze was easier to cast than copper and produced better tools and weapons. A refinement of the mixing method soon developed, in which tin and copper were smelted separately and were then melted together in controlled proportions. Trade contacts brought European tin eastward.

C.1.

Bronze in the Ancient World

In both Europe and the Middle East, bronze was mainly used for weapons and cutting tools—swords, spears, arrowheads, shields, adzes, and axes—although bowls and cauldrons were also made from bronze. During the 1st millennium, bronze was especially prized in Greece and later in Rome for sumptuous and elegant furnishings, such as tripods, bed and table frames, small oil lamps, and tall lampstands, often elaborately decorated with raised animal or leaf decoration.

C.2.

Chinese Bronzes

In China bronze appears to have been used almost exclusively for bells, mirrors, and vessels in a variety of prescribed forms for distinct functions in religious rites, as well as for weapons and for the decoration of horse trappings and chariots. This first Bronze Age in China lasted from about 1800 bc to the end of the Qin dynasty (221-206 bc). The bronze ritual vessels are especially admired for the nobility of their forms and the vigor of their abstract linear decoration. The decoration consists of highly conventionalized and attenuated masks and mythical monster forms, such as dragons. These vessels were cast from molds prepared with the decoration cut and incised on the inner face, resulting in equivalent projections on the cast vessel.

C.3.

European Bronzes

After bronze was superseded by iron for weapons, it remained in use in Europe as an artist's medium. Greek bronze statues, vases, and wine vessels, sometimes of large size and elaborately gilded, were greatly admired in Rome. The wandering tribes who gradually superseded Roman power in Europe (including Italy), also appreciated bronze, but used it more often for portable items such as shields and bowls as well as for buckles and brooches (often inlaid with colored stones or opaque enamel). In church furnishings, bronze continued to be used for larger pieces, such as candlesticks, baptismal fonts, and coffers. Perhaps the most famous bronze sculptures of the Renaissance are Lorenzo Ghiberti's sumptuously ornamental gilded bronze doors—the Gates of Paradise (1425-1452)—for the Baptistery at Florence, consisting of ten self-contained rectangular panels of biblical scenes cast in high relief. Many other Renaissance artists used this medium for smaller cast figure sculptures, often inspired by antique works of the classical era; this prime use for bronze has persisted to the present day.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, and especially in France, gilt bronze attachments—called ormolu—in the form of projecting and richly decorated cast mounts on edgings, drawers, and feet, were added to luxury furniture.

C.4.

African Bronzes

In Nigeria, between the 14th and 16th centuries, cast bronze sculptures of extreme refinement were made at Benin in a highly developed artistic convention unrelated to European styles.

D.

Copper

A large statue (c. 2300 bc, Egyptian Museum, Cairo) of the 6th-dynasty king Pepi I (reigned about 2289-2255 bc), made from hammered sheet copper, provides evidence that copper may have been more extensively used for fine art than is commonly supposed.

D.1.

Copper in the Ancient World

In Egypt and elsewhere in the ancient world, copper was superseded for weapons and tools by bronze and quickly became relegated to the realm of a useful metal for dishes, cups, and light domestic utensils. It was important, however, as the necessary ingredient for bronze and later as a toughener for silver and gold, although added in small proportions (sterling has 7.5 percent copper).

D.2.

European Copper and Brass

Copper was also important as the base for champlevé enamel plaques in the Middle Ages and later, for its softness facilitated the excavation of small areas to be filled with colored glass pastes. Copper is an ingredient, with zinc, of brass. In the Middle Ages in the town of Dinant (now in Belgium), large brass dishes with raised decoration were produced and exported in considerable quantities, although the Netherlands was the most prolific producer of brasswares. Brass was similarly used in the Islamic East for large dishes and braziers. Eastern craftsmen who settled in Venice in the 15th century produced exceptionally well-wrought bowls, ewers, dishes, and candlesticks damascened with elaborate oriental decoration in gold and silver; their method was continued by Venetian artisans using Renaissance styles of decoration after the middle of the 16th century. Large brass chandeliers designed to hold numerous candles were made in the Netherlands and England in the 17th century and were to be found in the early colonial homes in North America in the 18th century; brass drawer pulls were also popular on furniture in the colonies. Brass has survived into the 20th century in the form of such fixtures as door knockers, doorsills, letter boxes, candlesticks, and andirons.

E.

Lead and Pewter

The Romans, who had a superabundance of lead from their silver-refining activities, used lead primarily for utilitarian purposes—roofs, coffins, water cisterns, conduits, and plumbing.

E.1.

Lead

Lead is exceptionally soft and easily worked and was used in the Middle Ages in Europe for external architectural decoration. In England it was used extensively for the pipeheads of rainwater guttering and for roof coverings. From the 12th to the 15th century, lead baptismal fonts with cast raised decoration were produced. In the 17th century, lead garden statues became popular and remained in favor into the 18th century. During the 16th century, cast lead plaquettes were made in Germany by goldsmiths and silversmiths who specialized in supplying designs to other goldsmiths; they exported these plaquettes of the latest designs—both abstract and pictorial—to many parts of Europe. These plaquettes, which reproduced faithfully all the details of the carved-wood or soft-stone originals, are now collected as works of art in their own right.

E.2.

Pewter

Tin was available to the Romans both from their possessions in the Iberian Peninsula and in the British Isles. It was an important ingredient in bronze, but when mixed with lead (first in the 3rd century ad ) it produced the first pewter. A few hundred pieces of Roman pewter, however, are all that remain. No other early pewter, from Roman times until the 14th century, is known, except for the chalices and patens found in priests' tombs at Metz, France. Pewter, however, was probably made in some quantity. Churches too poor to own silver communion plates were allowed to use pewter after the 11th century; it was a flourishing craft when it came to be regulated in the 14th century in England. Pewter was commonly used for the eating and drinking vessels of the lower classes all over Europe, except in Spain. The metal is silver-colored when new and dulls to a pleasing, lustrous gray. In form, it was made in the usual shapes for pottery or silver and tended to rely on proportion and appropriateness rather than on decoration for its appeal. Some pewter, however, was decorated in the 16th and 17th centuries with cast motifs, particularly on the lids and handles of tankards; in Germany, Switzerland, and Scandinavia incised decoration or undulating lines made with a wheel were popular.

American pewter is highly prized by collectors for its amplitude and dignity, as well as for its connection with the country's early history. Dates and the initials of the owners are often found on it. Old pewter is comparatively rare, for it was the established practice everywhere to take old or deformed pieces back to the pewterer as part payment toward new purchases. Pewter was largely supplanted by silvered base metals in the 19th century, although it has reappeared in the present century for household items such as tankards and flatware.

F.

Iron

Small pieces of jewelry of meteoric iron have been found in Egyptian tombs, and no doubt the metal was for long treasured as an occasional find. The Hittites of Anatolia, however, appear to have been the first (c. 1400 bc) to understand and control the production of iron from its ores. This gave them a temporary military advantage over their neighbors in the superior weapons they made from iron. For such a versatile, functional, and strong metal, iron has had a surprisingly consistent history of use for artistic and decorative purposes.

The Chinese were the first to cast iron; from the 6th century ad they used cast-iron supports for buildings and for multistory pagodas. In Europe, iron was wrought—that is, hammered into shape when hot—by a special group of workers now called blacksmiths. Blacksmiths wrought coffers and weapons and made such large items of furnishings as great knockers and ring handles for the immense doors of castles and cathedrals as well as beautifully scrolled bands for strengthening doors. Wrought-iron railings, with superbly detailed work that looks almost like lace from a distance, was popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. Steel armor was often highly decorative, with splendid engraved or acid-etched motifs in the 16th century. The armorers who wrought them used a steel derived from iron and employed many of the hot forging techniques that were pioneered by blacksmiths over the centuries. After the Arts and Crafts movement was introduced in the mid-19th century, some exceptional wrought-iron work was produced in England.

Cast iron appears to have been introduced into Europe from knowledge of the Chinese success with it. For a long time, it had few artistic uses, although the cast firebacks introduced in the 15th century remained popular for some 200 years. In Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands, cast rectangular plates for wood-burning, enclosed stoves were also made, often decorated in relief at the moment of their casting from prepared molds with pictorial or abstract ornament. Toward the end of the 18th century, wrought iron began to be replaced by less costly cast iron for railings, balconies, banisters, and for garden furniture and decorations; this manufactured work, once considered as intrinsically bad and devoid of artistic merit, has come to have a certain appeal to present-day collectors.

See also Bell; Coins and Coin Collecting; Crown; Enamel; Flatware; Inlay; Jewelry; Sculpture; Sword