Heraldry as art: An account of its development and practice, chiefly in England

by G. W. Eve

Fig. 190.—Repoussé Buckler in the Royal Armoury, Stockholm.

Fig. 191.—Powder-horn with Armorials.
The Royal Armoury, Dresden.
Sixteenth Century.

The powder horn (Fig. 191) in the Royal Armoury at Dresden is a very good example of the treatment of heraldry on a small object, and incidentally shows the practice of placing helms on the heads of supporters in order to display some of the crests.

Fig. 192.—Bill or Glaive, German (1620).

Engraving being extensively used to cut decorative bands of ornament on the armour, was naturally the method adopted for ornamenting the blades of weapons and other flat surfaces. Indeed, it was from the engraving for ornament’s sake that engraving for the purpose of reproduction by printing was evolved by Finiguerra, the famous Florentine goldsmith, in the middle of the fifteenth century. This interesting experiment, if it were an experiment and not a practice whose application had been before unnoticed, is said to have been made on a piece of plate, a pix, of which the only impression is said to be in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Engraving was also preliminary to niello work and to damascening, two somewhat analogous methods of decoration, that are peculiarly suitable to the ornamentation of metal. In the former the lines of the engraving are filled with a sort of black enamel which is fixed in its place by heat, while in damascening the design, drawn with boldly cut lines on the steel, is filled in with gold or other metal hammered in with mallets, and the whole surface is then polished.

The halberds and partisans that were of the nature of ceremonial weapons, the arms of body guards, for example, were usually decorated in some such way. The bill or glaive (Fig. 192) is a good example of German work of its period, and the halberd (Fig. 193) is a very interesting specimen of French work of a little earlier date.

These examples will be found valuable in their bearing on the decoration of ceremonial tools such as the trowels with which foundation-stones are laid.

In engraving a surface for subsequent treatment with another metal or with enamel the process itself will dictate the use of a strong and suitable method of cutting. When, however, the engraving is to stand on its own qualities it is important to bear in mind the difference between engraving that is employed as decoration and that intended for printing. This distinction has frequently been lost sight of, with the result that there is much engraving of the sort that, however well it might print, and in some cases this is more than doubtful, it certainly does not decorate; while fine bold cutting that is done in the right way will realize the value of the play of light on the incised line, and the consequent ornamental effect. In this connexion it may perhaps be permitted to define shortly the technical distinction between etching and engraving. In etched work, then, the design is bitten into metal with an acid mordant, while engraving is done with a cutting tool.