image
The International Exhibition: capital and portion of shaft of column from the Hereford Screen, designed by G. G. Scott, R.A., manufactured by Skidmore's Art-Manufacturers' Company, Coventry, 1862. 'This work...the grandest and most triumphant achievement of modern architectural art...the largest art-work in metal of which we have knowledge...fitly illustrates the most glorious scene ever enacted on this earth - the Ascension of our Lord... In the cusped oval in the centre of the work, standing upon a capital round which the passion-flower is arranged with peculiar skill, is the Saviour risen above the suffering which the flower portrays...One feature of the screen which should not be overlooked or passed slightingly is the open manifestation which we have, upon viewing it, of the mode of its formation: it has resulted from the work of the hammer and the chisel - it is wrought...Every chemist is acquainted with the beautiful colours of some of the oxydes of the metals; but Mr. Skidmore has attempted the utilising such by applying them to the colouring of the iron; thus, as his work is formed of iron, copper, and brass, he has applied to it the colours of the oxydes of these metals'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862. The International Exhibition: capital and portion of shaft of column from the Hereford Screen, 1862. Creator: Unknown. (KEYSTONE/HERITAGE IMAGES/THE PRINT COLLECTOR)