ornaments. These are of great beauty, and the silver shrine of the bell of St Patrick (1091–1105) displays the interlaced scroll ornament in a striking degree. With the introduction of Gothic art into Britain the special characteristics of Christian Celtic art in Ireland gradually died out.
Anglo-Saxon.—Judged by the examples of Anglo-Saxon jewelry discovered, the Anglo-Saxon craftsmen brought their art to a high state of perfection, though hardly equal in merit to the Celtic. A large quantity of their metal-work is of bronze, frequently enriched with gold and enamel. Happily, there is preserved one priceless specimen of the goldsmith’s art of this period—namely, the famous Alfred jewel of gold, now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, with a portrait, believed to be of Alfred the Great, in cloisonné enamel. Another notable specimen is the Ethelwulf ring in the British Museum. Though ecclesiastical vessels, doubtless of the precious metals, appear in Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscripts, the only piece of plate of that time at present known is the plain silver cup of the latter part of the 9th century, found with gold and silver jewelry and pennies at Trewhiddle in Cornwall, which is now in the British Museum.[1] There is, however, an important example of metal-work embellished with silver plates—namely, the portable altar of St Cuthbert at Durham.
A most valuable description of the various methods of work practised by gold- and silversmiths in the 11th and 12th centuries is given by the monk Theophilus in his Diversarum artium schedula (Hendrie’s ed., 1847). He minutely describes every possible process that could be employed in making and ornamenting elaborate pieces of ecclesiastical plate—such as smelting, refining, hammering, chasing and repoussé work, soldering, casting (by the “cire perdue” process), wire-drawing, gilding with mercury amalgam, and the application of niello, enamel and gems.
The silversmith of those days, as in classical times, was not only a thorough artist with a complete sense of beauty and fitness in his work, but he was also a craftsman of the most varied fertility of resource, and made himself thoroughly responsible for every part of his work and every stage through which it passed—a most striking contrast to the modern subdivision of labour, and eagerness to produce a show of neatness without regard to real excellence of work, which is the curse of all 19th-century handicrafts, and one of the main reasons why our modern productions are in the main neither works of true art nor objects of real lasting utility.
Italian Plate.—Before the latter part of the 15th century, large pieces of silver work were made more for ecclesiastical use than for the gratification of private luxury. The great silver shrine in Orvieto Cathedral, made to contain the bloodstained corporal of the famous Bolsena miracle, is one of the chief of these. It is a very large and elaborate work in solid silver, made to imitate the west front of a cathedral, and decorated in the most sumptuous way with figures cast and chased in relief, and a wonderful series of miniature-like pictures embossed in low relief and covered with translucent enamels of various brilliant colours. This splendid piece of silver work was executed about 1338 by Ugolino da Siena, one of whose other works, a fine reliquary, is also at Orvieto. The other most important pieces of silver work in Italy are the frontal and retable of St James in the cathedral at Pistoia[2] and the altar of San Giovanni at Florence. On these two works were employed a whole series of the chief Tuscan artists of the 14th and 15th centuries, many of whom, though of great reputation in other branches of art, such as painting, sculpture on a large scale, and architecture, did not disdain to devote their utmost skill and years of labour, to work which we now as a rule consign to craftsmen of the very smallest capacity. The following celebrated artists were employed upon the altar at Florence: Antonio Pollaiuolo, Michelozzo, Verrocchio, as well as less prominent artificers, Betto Geri, Leonardo di Ser Giovanni and Betto di Francesco Betti.
Among the distinguished names of Florentines who during the space of one century only, the 15th, worked in gold and silver, the following may be given to suggest the high rank which this class of work took among the arts: Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, Luca della Robbia, the two Pollaiuoli, Verrocchio, Michelozzo, Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, Baccio Baldini and Francia. The cities of Italy which chiefly excelled in this religious and beautiful class of silver work during the 14th and 15th centuries were Florence, Siena, Arezzo, Pisa, Pistoia, Bologna, where there are fine 14th-century silver reliquaries executed by Jacopo Roseto da Bologna for the heads of St Dominic and St Petronio in the church of St Stefano, Perugia, where Paolo Vanni, Roscetto and others worked in the 14th and early 15th centuries, and Rome.
Owing to the demoralization and increase of luxury which grew in Italy with such startling rapidity during the early years of the 16th century, the wealth and artistic skill which in the previous centuries had been mainly devoted to religious objects were diverted into a different channel, and became for the most part absorbed in the production of magnificent pieces of plate—vases, ewers, dishes, and the like—of large size, and decorated in the most lavish way with the fanciful and over-luxuriant forms of ornament introduced by the already declining taste of the Renaissance. This demand created a new school of metal-workers, among whom Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571) was perhaps the ablest and certainly the most prominent. His graphic autobiography makes him one of the foremost and most vivid figures of the wonderful 16th century, in which often the most bestial self-indulgence was mingled with the keenest enthusiasm for art. The large salt-cellar made for Francis I., now at Vienna, is the only piece of plate which can be definitely assigned to Cellini. The splendid Farnese casket, with crystal plaques engraved by Giovanni di Bernardi, in the Naples Museum, has been wrongly attributed to Cellini. His influence on the design of plate was very great, not only in Italy and France, but also in Germany.[3] During the 17th century fine pieces of plate were produced in Italy, many of them still retaining some of the grace and refinement of the earlier Renaissance.
|
Fig. 12.—Silver Beaker, decorated with open work, filled in with translucent enamels. German or Flemish, of the 15th century. (S. K. M.) |
The papal treasure, containing priceless examples of the goldsmith’s art, was almost entirely depleted by Pius VI. to pay the indemnity demanded by Napoleon. The tiara of Julius II. by Caradosso, and the splendid morse of Clement VII. by Benvenuto Cellini, coloured drawings of which are preserved in the Print Room, British Museum, are among the objects then destroyed.
A valuable source of study of Italian plate (now destroyed) is contained in the three volumes of drawings, executed between 1755 and 1764, by Grauenbroch, in the Museo Correr at Venice.
Germany.—From very early times Germany was specially famed for its works in the precious metals, mostly for ecclesiastical use. In the 15th century a large quantity of secular plate was produced of beautiful design and skilful workmanship. Tall covered cups on stems, modelled with a series of bosses something like a pineapple, beakers and tankards, enriched with Gothic cresting and foliage, are
