114 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



August, 1906 



JSjllK uses of lead in English architecture are 

 as varied as they are delightful. Whether 

 for fonts, pipe heads or the sheathing of 

 spires and domes, lead has values which are 

 as great decoratively as they are practically. 

 The place of leadwork in the garden is, 

 however, almost entirely in decoration, whether it takes the 

 form of cistern, vase or statue. Against lead it has been 

 alleged that it is a makeshift material. It is doubtless true 

 that in the case of many of the lead portrait statues that 

 remain, such as that of William III. at Dublin, lead was 

 employed because it was cheaper than bronze. So much I 

 willingly concede, but as to garden statues, it is fair to affirm 

 that it is a more suitable material. It has a gentle, unob- 

 trusive quality which harmonizes with the domestic air of 



gardens. Bronze stat- 

 ues, which are the me- 

 morials of the great, 

 and are placed in great 

 sites, may have a noble 

 quality to which lead 

 does not aspire. More- 

 over, in many cases, the 

 figures have obviously 

 been modeled with a 

 certain roughness, ap- 

 propriate to'lead, which 

 would be coarse in 

 bronze. Compare, for 

 example, the bronze 

 Cupid, by Donatello, 

 which is in the National 

 Museum at Florence, 

 with the lead Amorini 

 at Melbourne, Derby- 

 shire, and pictured in 

 the headpiece to this 

 article. The fine lines 

 and detail of the Dona- 

 tello would lose if repro- 

 duced in lead. Even if 

 Cymbal Player in Lead attempted, the statue 



would soon be blurred by the battery of time and gently 

 effaced by lichens. Impossible, too, in lead is that exquisite 

 delicacy of expression which Donatello gave to his bronze, 

 the impish gaiety which a surface defect would destroy. 



It can not be said of the Melbourne boys that they lack 

 movement, but if they are compared with Andrea del Ver- 

 rocchio's bronze "Cupid with Dolphin" it will be seen that 

 the sense of merry elfish agility which Verrochio's figure sug- 

 gests is not only absent from the Melbourne figures, but 

 would be misplaced in lead. The question of muffled detail 

 is particularly noticeable in the wings. In Verrocchio's figure 

 each feather is distinct; at Melbourne they are little more 

 than suggested. There is, of course, the inferiority of the 

 artists in lead as modelers. The Melbourne figures came 

 from Jan Van Nost, early in the eighteenth century, and the 

 accounts are preserved. 

 There is an item of 

 "Young Triton with 

 brass pipe in middle 

 £6 9 o." Van Nost was 

 a Dutch sculptor who 

 came over with William 

 III. and started a foun- 

 dry of lead statues and 

 vases in Piccadilly. It 

 has been the habit to 

 sneer at these "imagina- 

 tions in lead." The Earl 

 of Burlington did so, 

 though his gardens at 

 Chiswick were full of 

 them — but it was no 

 mean artist who mod- 

 eled a certain lead boy 

 in his garden. His legs 

 have ill stood the pas- 

 sage of two hundred 

 years, but the whole 

 pose of the body and the 

 natural fling of the 

 head make him an ex- 

 quisite figure spouting A Personification of Art 



