Chats on Old Copper and Brass

by Fred. W. Burgess

Countries of Origin.

A collection of copper and brass to be at all representative must be varied and cosmopolitan in selection. Such a collection should include vessels of utility and ornamental objects which show the aims of the artist who designed them. Incidentally, too, such objects exhibit the sameness of purpose existing in many lands; although the methods of domestic procedure and the ways of living vary until their common origin is scarcely recognizable. In such a collection of domestic curios the influence of Saracenic art is seen in the ewers and basins and similar vessels which come from the lands where the wild Arab tribes lived for centuries in an almost barbarous state on the edge of the Syrian desert. Many of these quaint hammered copper vessels are of barbaric beauty, such as, for instance, the coffee-pot shown in Fig. 64 and the basin in Fig. 65.

There are some pleasing customs savouring of patriarchal days still practised by Arab races. Such, for instance, when the sheik has finished his morning meal he throws a stone into his brass or copper coffee-pot as a sign to his followers to strike camp.

"Awake, for morning, in the bowl of night,

Has flung the stone which puts the stars to flight,

And, ho! the hunter of the East has caught the Sultan's turritt in a noose of light."

FIG. 64.—COFFEE-POT OF HAMMERED COPPER FROM SYRIA.

The Arab metal-work is generally covered over with characteristic designs and distinctive styles. Equally characteristic is the finely engraved ornament on many small brass objects made by Arab craftsmen. This is exemplified in the small and beautifully engraved brass writing boxes which were once a feature among the educated scribes of Arab fame. One such case is to be seen in the British Museum, the work of Mahmud, son of Souker, of Bagdad, made in 1281. The style is said by experts to combine the art motives of Mesapotamia and Egypt, which in the thirteenth century very naturally met in Syria. Another distinctive style is noticeable in the art of the metal-workers of the Mameluke dynasty of Egypt; their arabesques showed more realistic foliage than the Arab decorations of an earlier date.

Antiquaries always turn quite naturally to Egypt, that land with such a great past, when seeking for inspiration from the great monuments which are masterpieces of art—in bronze and stone. These they find there it is true, but the more important pieces of metal-work of that early period are found in Assyria, from whence came ponderous gates of brass, covered with the remains of delicate tracery and inscriptions. Such works of ancient art are rightly given places of prominence in our museums; the private collector, however, is generally content with the lesser bronze antiquities of Egypt which he can collect. These include mirrors and many small articles for the toilet and some delightful domestic bronzes. Among them are charming little ewers with long projecting spouts and curiously wrought curved handles ornamented with masks and shells.

The curios which reach us from Cairo are mostly in strict accordance with Egyptian characteristics. The earlier examples are representative of the art of Northern Egypt as it was expressed by the metal-workers between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, throughout which there does not appear to have been any great divergence of style, although when objects known to have been made during the earlier part of that period, and others fashioned during the later, the progress and development, although it had been slow, is very noticeable. There are also some traces of outside influences. In Fig. 10 there is an early lamp of brass in the form of a bird, inlaid with copper, an example placed in the thirteenth century. Quite different is the late example (eighteenth century) given in Fig. 64, which is a coffee-pot with a bucket handle and another small handle at the back; the spout is roughly worked with corrugations and quatrefoils, on the five bosses being the marks adopted by the owner of the shop in Cairo where it was used.

Reference has already been made to the influence of Saracenic art upon metal-workers in places where the Saracens came in contact with the craftsmen. As indicative of this feature the fine large brass basin illustrated in Fig. 65 is shown. Some portions of the bowl have evidently been filled in with silver. There are other objects such as bowls, dishes, and ewers showing similar decorations, many of which may be seen along with this example in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Saracens seem to have had some influence upon what are usually regarded as European articles; thus in a collection of old bronze mortars there are sometimes examples from countries in the South of Europe which show in their designs these characteristics. The mortar had, of course, a very general use, and was needed everywhere in days when so many compounds were prepared by hand labour.

FIG. 65.—SARACENIC DECORATED BRASS BASIN.
(In the Victoria and Albert Museum.)

Persian art is peculiarly specialistic in its treatment. The designs used by the metal-workers in that country from quite early days were emblematic and of an all-over conventional type, often interwoven with scenes. Even many of the common vessels, like bowls and covers and saucers of brass, are cleverly chased with hunting scenes and floral attributes, many of the cups being covered with arabesque ornament.

Some of the brass egg-shaped hooker bases are chased in relief; the mounts of the rose-water ewers—which are often of china, with metal linings for holding ice—are frequently decorative. In many instances the vessels are ornamented with coloured inlays, giving them peculiar colour effects. Damascus—always an important seat of metal-work—has supplied collectors from many countries with the beautifully incised ornament produced by filling in the cut spaces with fine gold or silver wire beaten into the brass and then polished. So important has this mode of giving relief become that damascened metal stands alone as an art, seen at its best in the wonderful armour of the later period, when the utility of plate armour was giving way to the ornament which embellished the State armour—the "dress suits" of the regimentals of the Stuart days.