“It was,” says that document, “a large pedestal, supported on four dolphins, and having seated on it Cybele, mother of the gods, representing the mother of the king, accompanied by the gods Neptune and Pluto, and the goddess Juno, as Messeigneurs the brothers, and Madame the sister, of the king. This Cybele was contemplating Jupiter, who represented our king, and was raised on two columns, the one of gold, the other of silver, having his device inscribed—‘Pietate et Justitia.’ Upon this was a large imperial crown, on one side held in the beak of an eagle perched on the croup of a horse on which Jupiter was mounted; and on the other side supported by the sceptre he held—thus being, as it were, deified. At the four corners of the pedestal were the figures of four kings, his predecessors, all of the same name—that is, Charles the Great, Charles V., Charles VII., and Charles VIII., who in their time fulfilled their missions, and their reigns were happy, as we hope will be that of our king. In the frieze of that pedestal were the battles and the victories, of all kinds, in which he was engaged; the whole made of fine silver, gilt with ducat gold, chased, engraved, and in workmanship so executed that the style surpassed the material.”
Fig. 105.—Cup of Lapis-lazuli, mounted in Gold enriched with Rubies, and a Figure in Gold enamelled. (Italian Work of the 16th Century.)
Fig. 106.—Vase of Rock-crystal, mounted in Silver-gilt and enamelled. (Italian Work of the 16th Century.)
That rare piece was the work of Jean Regnard, a Parisian goldsmith; and the period when such works were produced was precisely that during which religious wars were about to cause the annihilation of a great number of the chefs-d’œuvre, ancient and modern, of the goldsmith’s art. The new iconoclasts, the Huguenots, shattered and melted down, wherever they triumphed, the sacred vessels, the shrines, the reliquaries. Then were lost the most precious gold-wrought memorials of the times of St. Eloi, of Charlemagne, of Suger, and of St. Louis.
At the same period Germany, where the influence of the Italian school had made itself felt less directly, but which could not escape from its impulse, possessed also, especially at Nuremburg and Augsburg, goldsmiths’ workshops of high character; these furnished the empire, and even foreign countries, with remarkable works. A new career opened to the German goldsmiths when the cabinet-makers of their country had invented those cabinets, whereof we have already said something (vide Furniture), and in the intricate decoration of which appear statuettes, silver bas-reliefs, and inlay-work of gold and precious stones.
The treasuries and the museums of Germany have succeeded in preserving many rich objects of that period; but one of the most rare collections of the kind is that in Berlin, where, in substitution for the originals in silver which have been melted down, are gathered a great number of beautiful bas-reliefs in lead, and several vases in tin,—copies of pieces of plate supposed to be of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And on this point it may be remarked that the high price of the material, together with the sumptuary laws, not always admitting of the possession of gold or silver vases by the citizens, it sometimes happened that the goldsmiths manufactured a table-service of tin, on which they bestowed so much pains that these articles were transferred from the sideboards of citizens to those of princes. The inventory of the Count d’Angoulême, father of Francis I., alludes to a considerable table-service of tin. Indeed, several goldsmiths devoted themselves exclusively to this description of work; and, to this day, the tins of François Briot, who flourished in the time of Henry II., are regarded as the most perfect specimens of plate of the sixteenth century.
However that may be, after Cellini, and until the reign of Louis XIV., the goldsmith’s art did but follow faithfully in the footsteps of the Italian master. Elevated by the impulse of the Renaissance, the art succeeded in maintaining itself in that high position without, however, any striking individuality discovering itself, until, in a century not less illustrious than the sixteenth, new masters appeared and imparted to it additional lustre and magnificence. These are named Ballin, Delaunay, Julien Defontaine, Labarre, Vincent Petit, Roussel, goldsmiths and jewellers of Louis XIV., who retained them in his pay, and lodged them in the Louvre. It was for that prince they produced an imposing collection of admirable works, for which Le Brun often furnished the designs, and under an inspiration altogether French, abandoned the graceful, though rather fluette forms of the Renaissance, and gave to them a character more diffuse and grand. Then, for a short time, every article of royal furniture proceeded from the hands of the goldsmith. But, alas! once more the majority of these marvels must disappear, as happened to so many others. Even the monarch who had ordered them despatched his acquisitions to the crucibles of the mint, when, the war having exhausted the public treasury, he found himself compelled, at least for example’s sake, to sacrifice his silver plate and to deck his table with earthenware.
Having finished this sketch of the goldsmith’s art in general, it may not be inappropriate to add a brief notice of the more special history of the French goldsmiths, of which the wealthy corporation may be considered not only as the most ancient, but as the model of all those that were formed among us in the Middle Ages. But first, since we have already referred to the exceptional part taken by the goldsmiths of Limoges in the industrial movement of that period, we cannot proceed further without noting another description of works, which, although derived from the oldest examples, nevertheless gave, and with justice, a kind of new lustre to the ancient city where the first goldsmiths of France had distinguished themselves.