Leadwork, Old and Ornamental and for the most part English

Transcriber’s Notes:
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LEADWORK
“ That which gives to the leadwork of the Middle Ages a particular charm is that the means they employed and the forms they adopted are exactly appropriate to the material. Like Carpentry or Cabinet work, Plumbing was an art apart which borrowed neither from stone nor wood in its design. Mediæval lead was wrought like colossal goldsmith’s work. ”—VIOLLET-LE-DUC.
1893 Macmillan & Co., London & New York.
Richard Clay and Sons, Limited LONDON AND BUNGAY.
To none of the processes of modern mechanism do more vulgar associations cling than to “Plumbing.” It is the very serviceableness and ductility of lead as a material that have brought about the easy and familiar contempt with which it is treated. While few are more worthy of artistic care no metal is more perfectly adaptable to noble use through a range of treatments that cannot be matched by any other metal whatsoever. It combines extreme ease of manipulation with practically endless durability, and a suitability to any scale, from a tiny inkwell, or a medal, to the statue of horse and rider, a Versailles fountain, or the greatest cathedral spire.
The range of method in handling follows from the equal ease with which it can be hammered out, cast, or cut, and all three, employed concurrently on the same piece.
The main purpose of the pages which follow is not to set out a history of the use of this material in various forms, although this is involved. It is intended by pointing out the characteristics and methods of the art of lead working in the past to show its possibilities for us, and for the future. A picture of what has been done is the best means of coming to a view of what may again be done. But it cannot be too strongly asserted that the forms of past art cannot be copied ; that certain things have been done is evidence enough to show that we cannot do them over again. Reproduction is impossible; to attempt it is but to make a poor diagram at the best.