Page:Arts & Crafts Essays.djvu/215

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Of Cast Iron.

the palace at Prague there is a St. George horsed and armed, the work of the fourteenth century. The qualities natural to iron which it has to offer for sculpture may best be appreciated by seeing the examples at the Museum of Geology, in Jermyn Street. On the staircase there are two large dogs, two ornamental candelabra, and two figures; the dogs, although not fine as sculpture, are well treated, in mass and surface, for the metal. In the same museum there is a smaller statue still better for surface and finish, a French work signed and dated 1841, and, therefore, half an antique. But for ordinary foundry-work without surface finish—probably the most appropriate, certainly the most available, method—the little lions on the outer rail at the British Museum are proof of how sufficient feeling for design will dignify any material for any object;

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