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 12th and 17th centuries. Over 400 illustrations on 86 plates, reprinted from a rare 19th-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, candlestands and a host of other architectural and ornamental elements. Notes to the plates identify the objects and...