Decorative Ironwork of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Book excerpt: Artists, illustrators, architectural and art historians, restorers, dealers, collectors--anyone interested in historical ironwork--will welcome this magnificent treasury of decorative designs produced between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries. Over 400 illustrations on 86 plates, reprinted from a rare nineteenth-century French volume of copperplate engravings, reveal a remarkable variety of decorative and utilitarian objects. Focusing primarily on German Gothic ironwork designs that embellished palaces, cathedrals, castles, houses, and other structures, the plates depict hinges ornamented with mythical sea creatures and dragons, door knockers decorated with female figures and human heads, keyhole plates wreathed in foliage, chests reinforced with iron bands displaying elaborate artwork, intricately laced metalwork on screens and grilles, elaborately designed keys, finials, candle stands, and a host of other architectural and ornamental elements. Notes to the plates identify the objects and provide, when available, a source and date for each. A splendid record of the inspired decorative flourishes of the past, these beautifully detailed plates will also serve as a lavish source of inspiration for today's designers. Dover (1996) republication of the plates from "Serrurerie, ou les Ouvrages en Fer Forgedu Moyen-Age et de la Renaissance, " published by Librairie Tross, Paris, 1870.