BRONZE is one of the very first materials that have been employed by human industry. Hesiod in describing the age of bronze Opera et dies, v. 149), says that the arms as well as the metal-work of the houses and the implements of husbandry were of copper, because at that time iron was still unknown. Proclus the scholiast of the poet, adds that men attached themselves to the profession of arms, in which they employed copper; but as this metal is of a soft nature, they hardened it by tempering it, and when the secret of this process was afterwards lost, they substituted iron for copper in the forging of arms. Amongst the Greeks, arms of brass ceased to be employed in the epoch posterior to the Trojan war, while according to Strabo, they continued still to be used by the Lusitanians, and especially by the Massagetae.

Antique bronze statuette. (Former Pourtalea Collection. I.

But, though discontinued as a material for the manufacture of arms, bronze did not on that account lose its credit. Easily worked, and especially suitable for casting, while adapting itself to the most delicate details as readily as to the most colossal works, it has remained from the remotest times to the present day the most effective auxiliary of sculpture and all its collateral branches. We shall therefore give it an important place, that which it should occupy in the furniture of people of taste. What effect is produced in galleries, libraries, and large apartments by bronze busts, and by groups standing on granite or marble pedestals; how much distinction is added to Boule furniture, and gilded console tables, by the elegant little statuettes, modelled "en cire perdue," works of the inimitable Florentine artists of the Renaissance. Everything, down to the plaquettes in bas-relief, to the severe medallions of the same epoch, here tells to advantage, their sombre tone subduing the somewhat garish appearance of cases sparkling with glass, gems, enamels, and all those charming smaller objects of art, now become so precious, since their history begins to be written.

It would be difficult now to begin a collection of the antique bronzes. We might here and there perhaps meet with a few statuettes, whose green patina would offer some relief to the monotony of the black bronzes of the fifteenth century. Fresh discoveries become more rare even in the vicinity of the famous temples or of the thermal springs where the ancients went in quest of health or of pleasure, for in this world nothing has changed. Hence we can hope to discover no more of those treasures and ex-voto objects that have hitherto enriched our museums. As for the works cast or chiselled by Aulanius Evander of Athens, Bcetus of Chalcedonia, Euphorion, Pasiteles and Posidonius of Ephesus, mentioned by Pliny, all these belong henceforth to history, and must be admired after a somewhat Platonic fashion. The seal-cutters Euphemus and Largonius, as well as Aptus, Parathus, Thaiamus and Zoilus, workers in that invaluable material known as Corinthian brass, these also no longer live except as mere names in the records of classic research.

In the Renaissance alone can we expect to light upon some reminiscence of those marvels. Not that the Middle Ages are absolutely silent in this branch of art, for there might be quoted some interesting objects, precious landmarks still standing on the highroad of the past, as if to connect one with the other all the manifold revelations of human intelligence. The reader may perhaps have seen an equestrian statuette of Charlemagne, from the old treasury of the cathedral of Metz, a statuette which, in its rude simplicity, manifests at least an intention on the part of his contemporaries to consecrate the memory of the great warrior and law giver. There are at the same time to be seen still more barbarous candlesticks, formed by a man riding on a lion, or by dragons with bushy tails supporting some scarcely outlined human figures, a work of the twelfth century. The fifteenth century consecrates to the glorious heroine, Joan of Arc, an equestrian statue, which though still of very rudimentary workmanship, we are fond of regarding as a proof of the gratitude preserved for "the Pucelle d'Orleans," as she is styled on the bronze, by the nation she rescued from the foreigner.

Nevertheless an intellectual movement had been felt in Italy so early as the twelfth century. Bonnano of Pisa had already cast the gates for the cathedral of that city and those of St. Martin at Lucca. Uberto and Pietro of Piacenza had also wrought the gates of the east chapel in St. John Lateran, thereby preparing the art world for the marvels with which Lorenzo Ghiberti was about to enrich those of the celebrated baptistry in Florence. Donatello, Andrea Briosco, "il Riccio," Andrea Verrocchio, Sigismondo Alberghetti of Venice, astonish the fifteenth century by the vigour and expression that they infuse into their wonderful bronzes. These are followed in the sixteenth by Benvenuto Cellini, Orazio Forteza, Alessandro Leopardi, Moderni, V. Locrino, Tiziano Aspetti, Valerio Belli, Tatti, "il Sansovino," Girolamo Campagna, Giovanni Bernardi da Castel Bolognese, Giovanni Bologna, Alessandro Vittoria of Venice, and the worker who signed: Opus IO. CRE; in a word, quite a galaxy of astounding artistic genius.

Head of Bacchus; handle of a vase; antique bronze of Graeco-ltnlian workmanship. (The old Pourtales Collection.).

The state of the technique at these remote dates is well known. Each artist had to invent his own processes and to do everything for himself. With the exception of a few plaquettes (de depouille) of very low relief which were formed so as to issue freely from the mould without altering its edges, all had to be cast a cire perdue, a difficult and costly process, as to repeat a statuette, the artist was required to prepare a fresh model. The consequence is that every Renaissance bronze is unique, because, whenever repeating his work, the artist, it might be, involuntarily modified, either the details, or the proportions, or else introduced some deviations suggested by his taste or fancy, here adding one accessory, there giving greater breadth to the folds of the drapery, elsewhere more grace to the support.

In the older specimens the statuettes are often solid, always heavy and thick, while the blackish patina or incrustation recalls that of certain antiques. Later on lightness becomes one of the distinctive qualities of the work, and we at last arrive at extremely delicate castings, which are coloured by means of that shining and warm coating known as Florentine patina, found occasionally in connection with accessories in ormolu gilding.

There is no need to vindicate the high claim of these bronzes to the consideration of all men of taste. The French museums betray in this respect a deficiency much to be regretted, and that one cannot but feel surprised has not yet been made good. Rut those alone that have never visited the splendid salons of the Rothschild family, of MM. Edouard Andre and Dreyfus, the cabinets of MM. His de la Salle, Davillier, Gatteaux, etc, can fail to appreciate the full grandeur and dignity of these little figures stamped with the seal of true genius. At times we observe the artist entering into rivalry with those of antiquity. Here, for instance, is the head of a young faun, smiling, full of animation, the hair streaming back, nothing, in a word, wanting to complete the illusion except a little green patina. Here again a statuette of Venus, her head encircled by a fillet, clothed in nothing but her radiant beauty, and holding in her right hand the apple doubtless just awarded her by Paris. Elsewhere Hercules raising his club, Cadmus armed. . . . But why linger over such reminiscences?

Are not the Florentines far more to be admired when, guided by their sole love of the beautiful and their wonderful comprehension of style, they create numberless masterpieces suggested by the simplest of motives? These bathers standing erect and playfully baying back the stream that ripples over their bodies; others again seated and wringing their flowing locks, or else removing a dangerous thorn set up in the bed of the stream, all this is very simple, and yet such motives have sufficed to give birth to genius. And it must have been by way of pastime that these masters created such charming trifles, which not one of them has thought it worth his while to attach his name to. It was less the love of fame that guided their modelling hand than the necessity of giving scope to the overflow of ideas that fermented in those glorious minds who shed a lustre on their epoch.

There is one point we should wish to insist upon. France also had her Renaissance. Louis XI. employed Laurent Wrine to cast the bronzes for the mausoleum he caused to be prepared for himself at Notre-Dame de Clery. Conrad Meyt, "imagier" of the Duke of Burgundy, worked also at bronzes, while Francisque Rybon made casts from the antiques brought from Rome for Francis I. We remember having seen a charming statuette of Mercury seated, formerly belonging to Baron de Monville's collection, and bearing the signature, unfortunately partly effaced, of Salomon G .. on with the two first ciphers, 15. These men, the forerunners or rivals of Jean Goujon, Germain Pilon, Barthelemy Prieur, Guillaume Berthelot foreshadowed the brilliant galaxy of the seventeenth century.

Gilt bronze statuette of Perseus, attributed to Benvenuto Cellini. (Baron Charles Davillier's Collection.).

At a time when there was nothing left in Italy, except Antonio Bonacino and Domenico Cucci, who later on withdrew to the Gobelins, these artists were producing in profusion elegant though somewhat pompous works, intended to decorate Marly, Versailles, and the other princely mansions. Such were Simon Guillain, the Anguiers, the Marsys, whose reduced groups, skilfully cast by Keller, still adorn the more noted French galleries. We may mention, as the most important type of these groups the " French Parnassus," dedicated to Louis XIV., now in the National Library, the "Rape of Orithyia" by Boreas, and the " Jupiter of Adam," both in the Louvre gallery.

Bronze statuette of the Florentine Renaissance period. (Old Pourtales Collection.).

Technical processes had then made such progress that casting became a game, and we see reproduced ancient groups like the Laocoon, Fame, the Marly horses, portraits and statues of celebrated warriors, all that iconography now so sought after for the decoration of artistic salons.