METAL-WORK 77 English examples of wrought iron, in which every art and feat of skill known to the smith has been brought into play to give variety and richness to the work. Much wrought-iron work of great beauty was produced at the beginning of the 18th century, especially under the superintendence of Sir Christopher Wren (see Ebbetts, Iron Work of 11 th and 18th Centuries, 1880). Large flowin" 1 leaves of acanthus and other plants were beaten out with wonderful spirit and beauty of curve. The gates from Hampton Court are the finest examples of this class of work (see fig. 7). From an early period bronze and latten (a variety of brass) were much used in England for the smaller objects both of ecclesiastical and domestic use, but except for tombs and lecterns were but little used on a large scale till the 16th century. The full-length recumbent effigies of Henry III. and Queen Eleanor at Westminster, cast in bronze by the " cire perdue " process, and thickly gilt, are equal, if not superior, in artistic beauty to any sculptor s work of the same period (end of the 13th century) that was produced in Italy or elsewhere. These effigies are the work Germany. Unlike England, Germany in the 10th and llth centuries produced large and elaborate works in cast bronze, especially doors for churches, much resembling the contemporary doors made in Italy under Byzantine influence. Bern ward, bishop of Hildesheim, 992-1022, was especially skilled in this work, and was much influenced in design by a visit to Rome in the suite of Otho III. The bronze column with winding reliefs now at Hildesheim was the result of his study of Trajan s column, and the bronze door which he made for his own cathedral shows classical influence, especially in the composition of the drapery of the figures in the panels. Fia. 6. Part of the " Eleanor Grill." of an Englishman named William Torel (see Westminster Gleanings). The gates to Henry VII. s chapel, and the screen round his tomb at Westminster (see fig. 8), are very elaborate and beautiful examples of " latten " work, show ing the greatest technical skill in the founder s art. In latten also were produced the numerous monumental brasses of which about two thousand still exist in England. Though a few were made in the 13th century, yet it was not till the 14th that they came into general use. They are made of cast plates of brass, with the design worked upon them with the chisel and graver. All those, how ever to be seen in English churches are not of native work great quantities of them being Flemish imports (see Cotman, Waller, and Boutell on Monumental Brasses). In addition to its chief use as a roof covering, lead was sometimes used in England for making fonts, genera ly tub-shaped, with figures cast in relief. Many examples exist : e.g., atTidenham, Gloucestershire ; Warborough and Dorchester, Oxon ; Chirton, Wilts ; and other places. Fio. 7. Part of one of the Hampton Court Gates. The bronze doors of Augsburg (1047-72) are similar in style The bronze tomb of Rudolph of Swabia in Mersburg cathedral (1080) is another fine work of the same school. The production of works in gold and was also carried on vigorously in Germany. _ the three kings at Cologne is the finest surviving example At a later time Augsburg and Nuremberg were the chief centres for the production of artistic works in the vano metals. Herman Vischer, in the 15th century, and his son and grandsons were very remarkable as bronze founders font at Wittenberg, decorated with reliefs of the apostles, was the work of the elder Vischer, while Peter and his son produced, among other important works, the shrine Sebald at Nuremberg, a work of great finish and of of Maximilian L, and the statues round it, at beeun in 1521, are perhaps the most meritorious German work of this class in the 16th century, and show consider
able Italian influence.