- US: A.S. Barnes and Company
- Copyright 1977
- ISBN 0-498-01864-4
- Betsey Lewis 1924-
p.13 - "within the past 10 years brass rubbing has become a fad in England"
p.14 - "8,000 of estimated 150,000 [brasses] still remain. Most of these are within a sixty-mile radius of London"
p.14 - "They abound in areas of prosperity, the Cotswolds, and East Anglia, which flourished during the wool trade, and where the quality of the native stone was poor for carving monuments"
- Full Title: Church Brasses; British & Contnental; with some Notes on Incised Stone Slabs and Indents
- London: B.T. Batsford, Ltd.
- First Published, 1956
- ISBN ?
- Alan Coates (A.C.) Bouquet, 1884-1976. http://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n50042124/
p.viii (Preface) - [a quote from Mentor Mr. J. Lewis André] "The brasses of England are a priceless treasure.... Religio, art, costume, heraldry, language, manners, and customs, all find exemplification in these simple plates of metal."
p.viii-ix - [two other observations to add:] "First, there is no other country in Europe which contains anything approaching the number of brasses to be found in England. Even one county alone, Norfolk, contains in itself more than the total number surviving on the Continent. Second, even in England, there remain perhaps only a tenth of what were originally laid down. Iconoclastic zeal, carelessness, and theft have left most of the indents bare. We may count ourselves fortunate that so many old brasses remain in our churches, and these we ought to cherish with intelligent appreciation."
p.x - "The day of actual brass-rubbing as a hobby is perhaps over. Many of our finest brasses are now jealously guarded, and their rubbbing is in some instances rightly prohibited. Here and there, brasses have a sheet of plate-glass padlocked over them. Good cobbler's heelball for rubbing purposes is also now almost unobtainable."
p.x - "One error on the part of collectors should in any case be pointed out. We were often told in the old days to cut out our rubings and mount them either on monochrome paper or on linen. For purposes of exhibition or decoration this was all very well, but as a record it was faulty. We now realize that if rubbing ever is carrour out, it should involve taking an impression of the whole slab, so that the indents of any missing parts (whatever they may be, whether limbs, shields, canopies, inscripptions, or other accessories) are duly reproduced"
p.2 (Chapter I "The Subject and its Context") - "It may safely be said that in no religion other than Christianity do we find quite such a wealth and variety of tombs and monuments to separate individuals of all classes"
p.15 (Chapter III - "The Craft of Brass-Making") - "The material from which mediaeval brasses were made was a compound of copper 60 per cent, zinc 30 per cent, and lead and tin 10 per cent, and was called latten (spelt variously latyn or latoner) ... Until the middle of teh sixteenth century latten was only manufactored on the Continent of Euripe, in Germany and Flanders, a was imported into Britain mostly in its raw state, there to be cut up and engraved."
p.17 - [latten] "was not made by deliberaately melting pure zinc and copper together, but by melting together copper, charcoal, and calamine ore (which is really carbonate of zinc, but the nature of which was not explicitly recognised). [...] clearly regarded in the Middle Ages as an alchemical or quasi-magical process whereby the colour of copper was changed from red to yellow."
p.17 - "[...]it had then to be manufactured into sheets." [the crude brass melted again, poured in to rectangular moulds, cooled, removed, and beaten into thinner sheets]
p.18 - "Where was the mediaeval sheet-brass manufactured? It is usually assumed that this was in Flanders, but on what evidence?" [evidence of latten mentioned in wills]
p.20 - "The earliest brasses are engraved on thick plates, and teh outlines are boldly drawn. In the Continental brasses the great majority of the plates are rectangular, and there is often rich ornamentation of the background. In England the figures are usually cut out nd mounted on a stone setting, and there is but little ornament beyond canopy work, and such heraldic devices as aim at distinguihing the different families from one another."
p.20 - "From the fifteenth century onwards the craft begins to decline a little. We see more and more signs of mass-production and slavish uniformity, and, except for local variations, less orginality of drawing, while the lines cut are shallower. Dr. Bushnell has suggested to me that the extra-ordinary facial similarities, so like those which would result from mass-production, may well be due to the use of tracings, whereby, no doubt, work wa simplified and speeded up, but all attempt at portraiture was abandoned."
p.20 - "When we reach the sixteenth century it is apparent that brass engracving, as understood in the pre-Reofrmation period, is ceasing. The old craftsmen are dying off without training worthy successors. The material becomes inferior in quality, and also thinner, and the drawing deteriorates, though attempts at portraiture reappur. The use of brasses continues to be common, especially in the reigh of Elizabeth, and now the material is being manufactured in England...."
p. 21 - "On the whole, it is considered that with the revivial of the arts which offurs at the time of the Restoration, brass-engraving improves, so that although its features are again quite different from thise of the mediaeval and even of the Tudor and early Suart brasses, the grace and refinement exhibited by the various heraldic and symnolical devices which accompany the inscriptions, as well as the quality of the lettering, are by no means negligible."
p. 23 - "The usual stone in which brasses were laid was what is called blue Tournai stone; but sometimes other stone was used; and when brasses relaid, there is no knowing of what their new slab may be made."
"A List of Monumental Brasses in the British Isles", Mill Stephenson. London, Monumental Brass Society, 1964
Busby, 1973