Studio: international art (2.1894)

Of Some Old Keys

beasts, too vegetable to be true classic sphinxes,
half human, with female face and breasts, half
monster or arabesque, so favourite a device in
Renaissance work. A typical form of bow in many
French keys, approximating to the standard required
by Guild traditions, is that suggestive of the outline
of a thistle-head, the upper part being crowned. If
one may judge from the few authenticated Spanish
examples available, it would seem that the bow was
an uncrowned and somewhat depressed ring, and
one more clearly discernible, through being less
overlaid with ornament, than in the case of con-
temporary examples of other countries.

As for our own keys, does not their design show
a lamentable poverty of imagination? Or is it
rather indifference on our part as to whether they
are beautiful or the reverse ? It is an end surely
worth attaining for the artists of to-day to be like
the artists of old, who, though their names are un-
recorded, might one and all have said, " Exegi
monumentum cere fierennius" or at least quite as
lasting, in the steel and iron locks, and keys with
which they have enriched the treasure-house of the

ages. Painters have left behind them names
accounted great, but there is no occasion for the
artist-locksmith to begrudge them their short-lived
notoriety. The painter's canvas will have faded,
cracked, and perished when the handiwork of the
humble locksmith remains—a memorial that shall

endure; for it deserves to endure. The world has
need of it. It can dispense with pictures as super-
fluities, but it cannot do without the most ordinary
household articles of daily life. It is therefore of

FIG. 4 FIG. 5

paramount importance to pay attention even to
small things like locks and keys ; for, since we must
have them with us always, let us see to it that each
and every one be a thing of beauty, and, being
such, fail not to be found a joy for ever.

Aymer Vallance.
For permission to reproduce the five keys here
illustrated, which are now at the Exhibition of
Early Italian Art in the New Gallery, we have to
thank their respective owners: Mr. David M.
Currie (No. 4), Mr. T. Whitcombe Greene (Nos.
2 and 5), and Mr. T. Foster Shattock (No. 3), who
kindly allowed Mr. H. Clifford to make special
drawings from them for use in our pages.

Collectors of book-plates will welcome a very
neat series of boxes prepared (at the suggestion of
Mr. Fincham, we believe) by Mr. W. H. Batho, of
7 Gresham Street, E.C. More especially do they
appeal to those who, limiting their interest to
artistic specimens only, forbear any thought of
rivalling a certain famous collection of one hun-
dred thousand examples. To stick these labels of
ownership in albums, prevents rearrangement with-
out much trouble and possible damage. Here very
neat book-shaped boxes—costing 2S. each octavo,
and 2s. 6d. quarto size—are fitted with stout
mottled grey mounts. Each box holds 100 loose
mounts, which are sold in packets of fifty at is.
and is. i,d. according to the size.