Bishops coat of arms

Many years and 3 Bishops ago I made this coat of arms . It gets inserted into the back of a very tall marble presiding chair the Bishop uses. The main design came from someone in the Vatican who designs these utilizing symbolic images and works up a theme for the new Bishop.
This being designed as I built it allows me to swap out the shield and scroll with his motto quite easily without having to recarve the entire piece. That worked fine until now the shape of the shield changed.
On the shield the left side doesn't change . That's the diocese side and the right side is the Bishops side.
This is the shield and motto for the last Bishop who wanted the piece to have a " aged" look to it. As to scale you can see the fish, keys and Rose can easily fit under a penny.

The new shield changed shape a bit but was easily accomodated. The left side still though retained the images for the dioceses and the right side symbols for the new Bishop. Here is a bit of the sequence from roughing out to cleaning up the piece.
The shield is 3/8ths thick with the carving 3/16ths deep.

Here is the primer prior to painting. The scroll is finished as well. And yes, anyone with keen eyes will notice the scroll ends changed. When I sat back and looked at it I didn't like the way they unfurled. So I cut them off and redid them.

And all wrapped up. Acrylic paints and 23k gold leaf. I was able to match the colors from years ago. But this Bishop wanted the hat,rope and tassels darker. Easy enough.

Mark, I always appreciate and enjoy seeing your talent. Thank you, Patrick

Thank you Patrick!

Look great , is the piece done in soft maple or Basswood?

Thanks. It's basswood. And a rather lousy piece at that.

I would have never guessed they are small ,certainly looks like big over mantle stuff! Your post could bring some work for luxury doll houses.

Thanks Mel. Yeah, sorta' small. Speaking of dollhouses I built a tabernacle some time ago that was like building a dollhouse. It was loosely modeled after St. Peter's Basillica where the columns were 8.5" high , tiny capitals that were 1 1/4" wide with egg and dart molding that was just over 1/16 th high.