Elaborately wrought designs for gates, fences, finials, banisters, window grilles, bedsteads, cathedral screens, other architectural and decorative appointments, Gothic to Art Nouveau — meticulously rendered in black-and-white drawings reprinted from vintage publications.

Superb examples of the ironworker's art — elaborately wrought designs for gates, fences, finials, banisters, window grilles, signs, marquees, cathedral screens, and a host of other architectural and decorative appointments, from Gothic style to Art Nouveau — meticulously rendered in fine black-and-white drawings reprinted from rare European and American books and periodicals.

Invaluable source of information for art historians, craftspeople, dealers, collectors, and preservationists includes hundreds of finely detailed illustrations of garden seats, candelabras, moldings, gates, balcony grilles, vases, crosses, funerary ornaments and monuments, finials, doorknobs and many other ornamental features. A rich source of inspiration and royalty-free graphics, as well, for commercial artists and designers.

Forty plates of meticulously rendered hinges, grilles, railings, latches, door knockers, and more — selected from English chapels, tombs, castles, and other structures — span more than 600 years of metalworking history.

Over 1,500 attractive black-and-white illustrations — drawn from balconies, gates, grilles, stair railings, and elsewhere — incorporate floral and foliate designs, human and animal figures, musical motifs, heraldic crests, mythological figures, geometrics, more.

This collection of 122 photographs from the early 20th century displays the range and beauty of Art Deco ironwork. From lamps, hotel sideboards, and sinuous staircase balustrades to screens that look almost Moorish and balcony railings where detailed animal figures seem about to spring to life, each piece is a unique masterpiece of decorative art. This photographic treasury is a rich source of inspiration and an invaluable resource for architects, creative ironworkers, and lovers of antiques.

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.