Earth in an Urn

A little earth was taken last week from three places in France: the spot at Ver-sur-Mer where Commander Richard Evelyn Byrd landed last year, from Picpus Cemetery where Lafayette is buried, from the battlefield near Luneville where the first Americans fell in the World War. This earth was sealed in an urn of bronze and gold. The urn was then carried to the U. S. where it will be placed upon the grave of the late Rodman Wanamaker, who did much to further friendship between the U. S. and France. Men will do much to beautify that which they find most terrible ; thus the urn which is to contribute its comfort to Rodman Wanamaker's grave was fashioned by the fore most iron worker in the world and a great artist: Edgar Brandt.

Workers in iron deal with a difficult medium and one which it is impossible to handle with two hands and a simple tool. Brandt, after he became successful in Paris before the War, had a large factory in which he made his graceful gates, balconies, doors and figured fire screens. During the War his plant was converted into a gun factory, and Edgar Brandt used his talent in metal for machines whose extreme beauty was that of cruel efficiency. When the War was over he designed the Bayonet Trench Monument near Verdun, presented by George Franklin Rand, Buffalo banker, and dedicated to the memory of the soldiers who had been killed at Verdun; he made the grating that sur rounds the perpetual fire under the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

His other works are scattered through out the world, in museums, on battlefields, in ocean liners, in parks or outside of great houses. Several are in the Louvre; the architects of the Cheney Bros, building in Manhattan persuaded him to design the great iron doors, window frames, screens, trees for the display of their silks. He designed the tall iron gates at the entrance to the Exposition des Arts Decoratifs in Paris three years ago where he received the highest prize. Describing the things he has made by their ordinary names makes it seem that Brandt is no more than a successful plumber who conducts his trade with an eye for symmetry rather than the clock. Such is not the case. When Brandt designs a clotheshorse the thing is as lovely as a statue; his screens arc metal tapestries, executed with the clarity of silhouettes, touched with a unique grace, severe, luxurious and odd. Forty-five, a native of Alsace-Lorraine and a resident of Paris, Edgar Brandt has none of the look of a Latin Quarter esthete; one would perhaps pick him out by appearance as a manufacturer rather than an artist. He talks like an artist, thinks like one, in practical, concrete terms.

Metal work has fallen now into comparative disrepute. Once, when kings wore crowns, a goldsmith was as good as a sculptor, and usually was one. Today, with the vastly increased usefulness of metal, there has been a corresponding decrease in its popularity as an artistic medium. There are few good iron masters in the U. S.; the best known is Hunt Diederich whose works are popular in the homes of millionaires. The technique of iron work is exceedingly complicated: every expert has his own preferences in melting, moulding, dry-casting, wet-casting, as every etcher has his special tricks. Edgar Brandt keeps his methods secret and will not let his workmen find out more about his processes than he can help. No one will ever know just how he made Rodman Wanamaker's urn.