Birmingham's Benvenuto Cellini

Another day working in Derby today, and I don't think anyone in the UK will be surprised to hear it poured with rain most of the day.

So, being too faint-hearted to venture out for a lunchtime walk I stopped instead in Birmingham on my way home, by which time the rain had relented. My blip is of a delightful roundel sculpture on one of the buildings in Colmore Row.

This street is in my opinion one of the finest in Birmingham, with many very grand looking buildings. You just have to remember to look upwards slightly as you walk along it, so that you notice what is above the shop and office frontages.

The sculpture is of Benvenuto Cellini, an Italian goldsmith, sculptor, painter, soldier and musician of the 16th century. It is one of a pair, the other being of Lorenzo Ghiberti, an Italian silversmith. They adorn a building that is now a Royal Bank of Scotland office, but the original occupant was William Spurrier, a silversmith whose showrooms were here from 1872-1916. The building was designed by Julius Alfred Chatwin, a prolific local architect whose work survives in many buildings of Birmingham.