Fig. 179.—Armorial Fireback. English. Sixteenth Century.
Fig. 180.—Armorial Fireback. English. Sixteenth Century.
It must be remembered, in designing firebacks, that the work is to be carried out by casting and should therefore be of suitable character. Casting is necessary because every time that wrought iron becomes red-hot and cools again it scales, and so loses a considerable thickness of material in a comparatively short time, a disadvantage that does not exist in the cast metal. The design in most cases is treated panel-wise within a raised border, but in the later backs the outline of the design, of the mantling and crest, sometimes formed the edge of the fireback without a containing rim. A space at the bottom, the part that was most embedded in the fire, is frequently left plain, or simply fluted.
Fig. 181.—Mortar in Cast Bronze.
Fig. 181 is also interesting as heraldry in cast metal, which in this case is bronze; and an Italian example is found in the arms of the Martelli, cast in bronze by Donatello (Fig. 182), which has much spirit, but lacks the excellent distribution of the same creature on the decorative shield for the Palazzo Guadagni now in the Museum at South Kensington.
Fig. 182.—Arms of the Martelli, by Donatello.
The elaborate hinges, clasps, and locks of doors and coffers that were often enriched still further with coats of arms are also of great interest and appear to have been made subjects of lavish decoration before the larger domestic belongings were so treated. Of the decorations of lock-plates the German example of the Imperial Eagle from the Town Hall, Nuremberg (Fig. 183), is interesting as an instance of great simplification of form to suit the material in which it is expressed. Fig. 184 is another but more ornate example of the treatment of pierced and chased metal.