The highly-enriched knocker and door-handle ([Fig. 36]) were sketched from the original, on one of the ancient houses of the quaint city of Nuremberg. The bell-pull beside it ([Fig. 37]) is also from the same locality. There is probably no town in Germany where more artistic old iron-work is to be seen than in this place,—once the richest of trading communities, when Albert Durer flourished within its walls, and the Emperor Maximilian held royal state in its old castle. To all who would realise the chivalric days of the old German Empire, we would say, “Go to Nuremberg.”
The bellows of carved chestnut-wood ([Fig. 39]) is in the possession of the Count de Courval. It is of simpler and “severer” design than common, inasmuch as it was usual to enrich these useful domestic implements with an abundance of elaborate designs, and fill their centres with scenes from sacred and profane history.
When ladies delighted in lace-working, and in starching and preparing their produce most carefully, they showed their good housewifery in washing and ironing it with their own hands. It was gallantry on the part of their spouses to make befitting presents of all things requisite for their labours, and worthy their use. The box-iron we engrave in [Fig. 39] is one which has thus been given; it bears the monogram of the fair lady who originally owned it, engraved within a “true lover’s knot.” The cupidons of the handle ending in flowers may be an emblem of Love and Hymen, forming an appropriate embellishment.
