METAL WORK, any work done in metals, but especially handwork practised as a decora tive art, in which the materials are metal and the designs are executed in repousse or relief. This may be accomplished either by carving or expert hammering as of thin sheet metal. The term includes jewelry (q.v.) and goldsmith's work; hence its materials are often the precious metals and its end personal adornment. But it is often applied to larger work and especially to metal decoration in architecture, apparently a later development in the arts than was the jeweler's trade, which flourished in classical antiquity, and everywhere seems to have quickly followed the most primary knowledge of metallurgy in industrial evolution. The Middle Ages were the great period of metal work, notably in connection with Gothic art. Even the more valuable metals were lavishly used in this epoch, as before in the Byzantine period, and since in the architecture of the Greek Church, above all in Russia. One of the
foremost instances of Italian metal work is to he found in the altars of Saint James at Pis toria and of the baptistery of Saint John in Florence. Each of these was the work of a line of great artists, whose elaborate work upon them covered more than a century. Cellini (q.v.) was the greatest metal worker of the 16th century. Even more important than this work in silver and gold are the great bronze doors in the Florence baptistery, one by Ghi. berti and another by Pisano, each the product of a score of years of labor, and both dating from the 15th century. Wrought iron work began to be used in the 12th century; between the 13th and the 18th centuries in the shape of gates, grilles and screens in ecclesiastical art,• and in German locks and hinges of great beauty, it came to its most perfect form. The sepulchral brasses of German, French and Eng lish churches should also be mentioned. See BRASSES.