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Restoring antique French garden gate

I recently bought an antique wrought iron French garden gate at an antique store. The plan is to use it as a focal point in my front yard; and perhaps grow morning glories on it. It has a very unusual design in how several of the elements are forged. For a solid hard metal object, it just seems to have so much life and movement. It still bears a lot of the original blue green paint, but there is a considerable amount of rust, especially on the back. Part of the reason why I was attracted to it is that the color would go really well with the trim on my house. Another friend told me that that color blue is very typical on fences in France, which supports its supposed origin. The friend who talked me into buying it promised to help me remove the rust. I know my husband will not understand buying, much less displaying, anything that is rusty; so I need to get it fixed up before I bring it home. We are working on it at my friend's house.

My friend ground all the loose rust off with a rotary wire brush. But that does not mean bare metal is exposed: the surface is still rusty but now none of it is loose. We have been applying naval jelly to it in stages to remove the remaining rust. I have used this before, and though it seems to remove rust, it leaves the surface black. Therefore it will still need some kind of coating (paint, sealer, lacquer), but hopefully the rusting process will be stopped and it will not penetrate through to the surface again.

From a design perspective, and a functional one, where should I go?

1 ) Match the paint and paint the whole thing a solid color?

2 ) Seal the formerly rusted areas and leave them black?

3) Match the paint, touch up just the formerly rusted areas, and then clear coat the whole thing to retain some of the "antique" effect that a little rust gives it?

Here are some "before" pictures:

Overall view of the whole thing from the back, showing more rust:

A detail of the front, with how much rust shows there:

A small detail from the front, with the rust highlighting some of the detail:

Thanks for your advice!

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