rg by Peter Vischer the Younger. It
was of bronze, the symmetrical diapered form of the open work part
being supported by chaste and dignified columns of the Corinthian
order. It was first designed by Peter Vischer the Elder, and revised
and changed by the whole family after Hermann's return from Rome
with his Renaissance notions. It was sold in 1806 to a merchant
for old metal; later it was traced to the south of France, where
it disappeared.

Another famous bronze of Nuremberg is the well-known "Goose Man"
fountain, by Labenwolf. Every traveller has seen the quaint half-foolish
little man, as he stands there holding his two geese who politely
turn away their heads in order to produce the streams of water!

With the best bronzes, and with steel used for decorative purposes,
the original casting has frequently been only for general form,
the whole of the surface finishing being done with a shaping tool,
by hand, giving the appearance of a carving in bronze or steel. In
Japanese bronzes this is particularly felt. The classical bronzes
were evidently perfect mosaics of different colours, in metal. Pliny
tells of a bronze figure of a dying woman, who was represented
as having changed colour at the extremities, the fusion of the
different shades of bronze being disguised by anklets, bracelets,
and a necklace! A curious and very disagreeable work of art, we
should say. One sometimes sees in antique fragments ivory or silver
eyeballs, and hair and eyelashes made separately in thin strips and
coils of metal; while occasionally the depression of the edge of
the lips is sufficient to give rise to the opinion that a thin
veneer of copper was applied to give colour.

The bronze effigies of Henry III. and Eleanor, at Westminster, were
the work of a goldsmith, Master William Torel, and are therefore
finer in quality and are in some respects superior to the average
casting in bronze. Torel worked at the palace, and the statues were
cast in "cire perdue" process, being executed in the churchyard
itself. They are considered among the finest bronzes of the period
extant. Gilding and enamel were often used in bronze effigies.

Splendid bronzes, cast each in a single flow, are the recumbent
figures of two bishops at Amiens; they are of the thirteenth century.
Ruskin says: "They are the only two bronze tombs of her men of the
great ages left in France." An old document speaks of the "moulds
and imagines" which were in use for casting