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The Casting-Technique of Certain Greek Bronzes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

R. Raven-Hart
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Extract

It is here suggested that the carved effect of many Greek bronzes, or of parts of them, is due rather to their having been cast from carved originals than to extensive tooling of the metal cast as is frequently assumed.

Many of the early small Greek bronzes (Geometric and Archaic: especially at Olympia) present this appearance, looking as if they had been carved rather than modelled. This could be explained in one of two ways: (1) by assuming very extensive tooling of the bronze after casting from a modelled original; or (2) by assuming that this original was carved and not modelled.

The first seems to be tacitly accepted by many writers, and is explicitly stated by some. It is of course entirely possible; but after all the Greek craftsmen were practical men, and extensive tooling is not only laborious and therefore expensive, but is also dangerous in that any slip of the tool may ruin not only the cast but the whole work of the artist if this was originally in wax, lost by cire perdue casting. If it were possible to do the carving on the original, of some material softer than bronze, and above all if it were possible to replace and re-carve a mis-carved portion of that original, any sculptor would be inclined to prefer such a process to cold work on the bronze.

The second assumes that the original was carved. Seltman definitely adopts it: ‘from about 800 B.C. for more than three centuries the Greeks generally made their small bronzes from carved wooden models’, by means of ‘wet clay moulds, which, after being sun-dried, would be taken from the wooden figures and fired’. Against this is the fact that it would not be possible to remove those ‘clay moulds’ except in many separate parts, owing to the under-cutting of many of the examples he figures; and this for originals only a few inches high, so that these parts would be so minute as almost to demand tweezers and a watchmaker's glass to handle them.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 78 , November 1958 , pp. 87 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1958

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