Victorian Architectural Sheet-Metal Ornaments

This rare volume from a nineteenth-century Ohio manufacturer features a lavish assortment of impressive architectural ornaments and magnificent statuary. Scores of crisp black-and-white illustrations depict a fantastic array of designs — rendered in zinc, brass, and copper — ranging from dainty rosettes, feathers, and flowers to an 8-foot, 130-pound statue of Justice. Also included are such mythological and historical figures as Vulcan, Atlas, Christopher Columbus, John Hancock, and George Washington, as well as angels, soldiers, knights, eagles, griffins, gargoyles, and more. Among other wares depicted here are handsome rooftop ornaments — crestings, finials, vanes, etc. — and a profuse selection of spandrels, friezes, and cornices, elaborately decorated with shells, flowers, and intricate scrollwork. Accompanied by captions supplying measurements and prices, these illustrations offer an authentic glimpse of the architectural ornaments that embellished buildings in the late nineteench century. The volume will be a treasured browsing book for antique and nostalgia buffs, a source of inspiration for architects and designers, and an excellent source of copyright-free illustrations for artists and illustrators.