Transparent colour was often applied over this tinning, which, shining through, gave it lustre; or the tinning alternated with the colour as in chevrons of tin and blue and red. We may suppose that this sort of work was done in England, for some leaded spires shown in the paintings at St. Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster, were coloured vermilion and gold, or green and white, in chevrons following the leading.
Stow also tells us that at the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem, Clerkenwell, rebuilt after a fire in 1381, there was a steeple decorated in this way which remained to his day and was then destroyed. “The great bell tower, a most curious piece of workmanship, graven, gilt, and enamelled, to the great beautifying of the city, and passing all others that I have seen.”
Rain-pipe heads at Knole have patterns formed in this way by bright tin applied to the surface. There are also heads of water pipes at the Bodleian and at St. John’s College, Oxford (see Figs. [71] and [72]), treated all over with patterns of chequers and zig-zags. Those at St. John’s have cast coats of arms in wreaths brightly emblazoned in gold and colours. The collars to the pipes are painted with patterns, as also are some pipes at Framlingham, Suffolk.
Fig. 35.—Incised Decoration, Bourges.
Sometimes the pattern was incised on the lead in deep broad lines, and these, when filled with black mastic, traced the pattern without any tinning. An example of this method is found in a ridge and finial [sketched] at Bourges—the hearts and scallop shell were badges of Jacques Cœur. Other portions of the lead work at this house are decorated by patterns in lamp-black painted on the lead. See the ridge and examples of flashings drawn in Figures [36] and [37]. A ridge designed for St. Vincent’s Church at Rouen, of which a drawing is preserved, is a beautiful instance of this treatment; it is divided into lengths in which branches with leaves and flowers alternate with a stiffer pattern. The spire before spoken of, at Chalons-sur-Marne, furnishes the finest example of these methods used in combination. See drawings in Builder, 1856, and in the sketch book of the Architectural Association for 1883, both by Burges. This decoration is of the fourteenth century and is thus described by Viollet-le-Duc:—“The sheets of lead were engraved in outlines and filled in with black material, of which traces may yet be seen. Painting and gilding illuminated the spaces between these black lines, and we must observe that nearly all the leadwork of the middle ages was thus decorated by paintings applied to the metal by means of an energetic mordant. The plumber’s art of the middle ages is wrought out like colossal goldsmith’s work, and we have found striking correspondence between the two arts as well in the methods of application as in the forms admitted: gilding and applied colour here replace enamel.” The design is of tabernacle work with figures and the whole was clearly intended to recall a shrine of goldsmith’s work. Large engraved patterns filled with black used alone on the silvery lead become great niellos, exactly parallel to the method of treating silver.
Fig. 36.—Painted Decoration, Bourges.
Fig. 37.—Flashings, Bourges.