It was possible to hire plaster figures, as Nollekens informed his fellow sculptor, Francis Chantrey, ‘You may hire casts at Papera's and Genelli's’, and as the amateur artist, Sarah Harriet Burney, told a friend in 1804, ‘By subscribing a shilling a week to Papara, the Plaisterman, I got what busts or whole length figures I pleased’ – which she could then use in her studies. In a remarkable account, the story was told of Italian plaster figure makers, from the mountains north of Lucca, journeying across Europe, to France, Germany and even to Russia (‘Wandering Italians’, Penny Magazine, 2 February 1833, no.54, p.42, accessible on Google Book Search). 1. The use of plaster casts in the early 19th century 3. Evidence for migrant groups of plaster figure makers in Britain comes through the official ‘Returns of Aliens Passengers’, recording foreigners landing in Britain and through the 10 yearly census returns. Fig.6. Showing his collection of classical plaster casts and modern marble busts. Fig.7. He worked extensively for Edward Onslow Ford and Alfred Gilbert in the late 1880s and early 1890s, until his death in London in 1893, age 56. Switchboard: +44 (0) 20 7306 0055, We are currently closed until spring 2023, while essential building works take place, 1. Of Flaxman, it was said that he had ‘kept a large shop in the Strand, for the sale of plaster figures, which was not then so hackneyed a trade, as it has now become by the large importation of Italians’ (Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. A generation later, during the First World War, Brucciani & Co Ltd ran into financial difficulties as the museum and school of art markets declined. The authorities at the Crystal Palace in south London, which opened in 1854, sought casts of great works of art across Europe and beyond. Such figures might be bronzed to give them a more solid appearance and to suit the heavy feel of Regency interiors. Texts address plaster casts and related themes from antiquity to the present day, and from Egypt to America, Mexico and New Zealand. Every piece is made in-house and by-hand. Search over 215,000 works, 150,000 of which are illustrated from the 16th Century to the present day. Select art materials for classical art training in the atelier tradition. Not all moulders were Italian. In the second half of the 19th century, London institutions and museums were actively building collections of casts of architectural details and of works of art, as well as of fixed monumental work, both from Britain and abroad. Orders from Plymouth, Liverpool, Bristol and elsewhere followed. Articles explore the functions, status and reception of plaster casts ⦠Advertising more than 300 plaster figures of classical and modern subjects. But after a few years I stopped selling my own Plaster Casts and put affiliate offers from Amazon on my website, where I earned a small commission. This account takes up where Timothy Clifford’s essay, The Plaster Shops of the Rococo and Neo-Classical Era in Britain leaves off (Clifford 1992). Clifford established the importance of such figure sellers in 18th-century Britain, especially in London, and their role in supplying figures and plasterwork for ornamenting and lighting interiors, and for use as models for manufacturers such as Wedgwood. The best documented of such moulders is Fernando Meacci, who was one of three plaster workers, along with Ferdinando Lucchesi and T. Millon, recommended to students by the sculptor E. Roscoe Mullins in 1889. William Blake, plaster cast of head by James De Ville, published 1823 (National Portrait Gallery). Print your own Munsell Color Reference Charts at home on your desktop inkjet printer! Another figure maker, Raffaello Sani set up temporarily in Portsea, advertising a fine collection of Italian sculpture and alabaster carvings in the Hampshire Telegraph in 1869. In photographs such as 'The Faun' (2007), the London based Liane Lang emphasizes the sensuous potential of plaster casts after classical nudes, as well as their lifelessness by staging them together with life-like reproductions of human limbs made of latex, wax, silicon, or rubber, that disturb the viewer as they appear ⦠After that the code no longer works. Plaster casts, generally in the form of classical figures, were used as elegant supports for interior lighting, a trade which reached its height in the early 19th century. While at first these two activities, plaster figure making and bronze sculpture founding, were largely separate, as the century progressed some plaster figure makers came to specialise as sculptors’ moulders and also began to have an impact on the trade in electrotype reproductions. Joseph Caproni employed five men in 1871 and Onarato Regali six or seven. In the case of Papera, we know that he built up a remarkable clientele of leading figures in society within a few years of arrival, including the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Warwick, Sir George Beaumont and Sarah Siddons. Best value for money. Fig.5. John Thomas Smith’s etching, Very Fine. It would seem that they preferred to use the Italian term to distinguish their craftsman, whether Italian or not, from the common plaster figure makers of the streets of London. Collections were assembled in boxes which could be transported. The sculptor, Joseph Bonomi the Younger, cast reliefs for Robert Hay in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt, 1824-34, while Lorenzo Giuntini worked in Central America for Alfred Maudsley in 1883 and 1885 and in Persia for Herbert Weld in 1892. This is the Museum of Classical Archaeology Collections online database of the plaster cast, pottery sherd and paper squeeze collections. 1. Such figures were used to ornament interiors from the grandest country houses to the most ordinary homes. The use of plaster casts in the early 19th century, 3. We might also wonder how the change in medium, from marble or bronze to plaster, alters how we feel about that sculpture. He was not the only artist collecting such casts. In 1843 Antonio Caproni of 97 Gray’s Inn Lane was accused of retailing an indecent cast of a naked female figure in the street. And the offered Alginate for making your own Plaster Cast is not suitable for every object – taking an impression of hands with Alginate makes most sense. At this time Meacci was calling himself a piece moulder and figure maker on his invoice paper. Developments in the plaster figure trade 2. Domenico Brucciani’s invoice for moulding and reproducing the tomb effigy of Robert, Duke of Normandy in Gloucester Cathedral, 1875 (National Portrait Gallery records, Duplicates of Accounts). plaster cast for 0.0 Check out my other items!WHY NOT CHECK OUT THE OTHER ITEMS IN MY SHOP MANY FINE EXAMPLES UP FOR GRABSAS OTHERWISE STATED IN ITEM ⦠These figure makers left ‘Little Italy' and Clerkenwell to follow the sculptors, whether to Chelsea, Fulham or St John's Wood. Very Cheap, etching by John Thomas Smith, published 1815, from his Etchings of Remarkable Beggars, Itinerant Traders and other Persons (National Portrait Gallery). Domenico Brucciani’s success as the leading Victorian plaster figure maker came as a result of a competition to select a moulder in 1853 or 1854 for what became the South Kensington Museum. Developments in the plaster figure trade, 2. Now that the Corona thing gives us a lot of time at home, I have brought my Plaster Casts back to life and added them to my shop. In 1958 when Hepworth wished to make casts of her earlier work, she turned to Mancini for the essential moulds, leaving him initially horrified by the complexity of casting her work but which he managed using a forty-piece mould. Where an individual maker or a particular cast collection is referred to in the above text, the information is sourced in the online directory, British bronze sculpture founders and plaster figure makers, 1800-1980. The making and collecting of plaster casts from the antique is a result of the discovery in Rome of famous pieces, such as the Laocoon Group, from around 1500. In 1858 a court case against a master, Luigi Caproni, was dismissed concerning the wages of Mansueto Mei, a plaster figure maker who had left him after 20 months of a 30-month contract to make images. From about the mid-18th century, when plaster casts of antique sculpture became more widely available, antique gems also began to be copied in plaster and other materials. It was updated until 2000. Other moulders who worked for the South Kensington Museum in the late 19th century included Enrico Cantoni, in England by 1881, and on a more occasional basis, Fernando Meacci and Lorenzo Giuntini. Waterproof Cast/ Plaster Protector #1 . In both cases, they approached the Board of Education to take over all or part of their businesses. The more established makers would advertise in the press and elsewhere and might focus on the trade in casts and reproductions for museums, professionals and schools of art. Universities wanted to have plaster casts of new masterpieces as soon as they were found. t: 020 7223 2360 e: [email protected] Lavender Hill Colours ® 146, Battersea Business Centre 99-109 Lavender Hill London SW11 5QL This page is intended as a source of information for art students who want to learn classical painting. They would cross the Apennines and the Alps, marching in a little corps of twelve or fifteen. Very Fine. The sculptors, Joseph Nollekens and Sir Francis Chantrey, and the artist, Benjamin Robert Haydon, were also active collectors, while the architect, Sir John Soane, chose to ornament his house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields with an array of casts, many chosen towards the end of his life with his proposed museum in mind. Ceiling roses provide a decorative ⦠Read ⦠The operators of the page participate in the Amazon partner program. A nice selection of plaster casts of the human form, as well as plaster geometric shapes. National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, London, WC2H 0HESwitchboard: +44 (0) 20 7306 0055, Find out more about the Inspiring People project, National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, London, WC2H 0HE A cast might even be painted, reproducing an aspect of classical sculpture that is ⦠The privileged position of sculpture in the study of classical antiquity, strong from association with classical texts was strengthened further during the second half of the 19th century by the remarkable discoveries of originals in Greece. The trade outside London was smaller but still dominated by Italians: Luke O’Neil in Edinburgh by c.1784 (he was also a firework maker), Pellegrino Mazzotti in Norwich before 1819, Tognieri in Bath by the 1820s and Pieroni in the 1850s, and Papera junior and Andrea Giuntini in Cheltenham in the 1840s, to name but some of the makers active in a few selected centres. By the late 19th century, the sculptors’ moulder had become an established specialist role. Many of the casts from these expeditions came to the British Museum. Many of these men and boys will have been on lengthy fixed-term contracts, of as much as three years, under which they were paid a bonus on completion, leading to occasional abuse of the system whereby they were harassed towards the end of their contract to the point that some left in desperation, losing their wages and their bonus (see Lucio Sponza, Italian Immigrants in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Realities and Images, 1988, pp.76, 78). Eleven weeks later, Luigi announced his impending departure from Newcastle, naming some of his mythological and other figures, some ‘newly brought over from France’, also referring to busts by Chantrey and Baily. As a result, many 19th-century plaster figures are marked with the maker’s name. Texts address plaster casts and related themes from antiquity to the present day, and from Egypt to America, Mexico and New Zealand. Robert Shout’s broadside catalogue (detail), c.1800-3 (National Portrait Gallery Library). These itinerants sought not to settle in England but to return home with enough money to become owners of a house and a little land in the immediate neighbourhood of the villages where they were born. The leading English figure makers of the late 18th century were in retreat: John Cheere died in 1787, James Hoskins in 1791, William Collins in 1793, Charles Harris in 1795, Richard Parker in 1799 and John Flaxman senior in 1803. These most often are anatomical plaster casts. Cantoni produced various reproductions for the Museum, 1892-1912, mainly plaster casts, copies of which were supplied to other museums including those at Edinburgh and Dublin and he also undertook some bronze founding work. Sculptors’ moulders became a specialist branch of plaster figure working, producing piece and waste moulds, gelatine moulds and plaster and wax casts, so necessary in the production of bronze sculpture. The interest in phrenological heads endured into the early 20th century until the subject was substantially discredited. Texts address plaster casts and related themes from antiquity to the present day, and from Egypt to America, Mexico and New Zealand. in association ⦠These appointments probably gave him the resources and incentive to open his splendid Galleria delle Belle Arti in Russell St in 1864. Jacob Simon[email protected]21 February 2011. Antonio Stoanbi, age 56, appears in the 1881 census as a hawker in plaster figures in Raffaello Sani’s household in Gray’s Inn Road. A few years later, C. Smith & Sons withdrew from the schools market. Collecting by museums and academies 5. However, the connection between sculptor and moulder was a very old one. Fig.2. Sculptors’ moulders from 1880. Nothing special and in any case not expensive. Several historic cast collections survive more or less intact: that of Sir John Soane at Soane’s Museum put together in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (www.soane.org/collections_legacy/casts/), the later 19th-century collection of plasters casts and electrotypes at the Victoria and Albert Museum (Cast Collection - Victoria and Albert Museum), the cast collections at the Royal Academy, begun after the Academy’s foundation in 1768 and continued into the early 20th century, the Edinburgh cast collection at Edinburgh College of Art, including part of the late 18th and early 19th-century collections of the former Trustees’ Academy and the Oxford University collection of classical casts, largely at the Ashmolean Museum, much of which was assembled from 1887 (www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/sculpture/plastercasts/cast). Nineteenth century Art instruction often included the use of sculptural models as teaching aids for drawing, painting, study of anatomy and sculpture study, known as Drawing Casts to emphasize the study of form and the visual effect that light and shadow had on these forms. Indeed, the image of a youth holding aloft a tray of plaster figures became one of the 19th-century ‘Cries of London’. Very Cheap (fig.3), shows how well-established this street trade had become in the public imagination by the time of its publication in 1815. In the event, the Victoria and Albert Museum did take on Brucciani’s cast making business from 1921, renaming it the Department for the Sale of Casts while retaining the same manager, Paul Ryan. Discovery, reception and diffusion of classical art - Sculpture - The Classical Art Research Centre and The Beazley Archive - The University of Oxford It was also a time when the demand for bronze statues was growing as a result of the desire to commemorate the wartime heroes and political leaders of the day through public statues and church monuments. But not all such street vendors were boys. For artists, plaster casts could be both an ornament and an inspiration. Substitutes for a Master: use technology to improve your artistic skills. We can design and produce to a high-quality standard, offering an extensive range of choice and diversity to ensure the provide the right product for the right style of room. Fine Arts!!’). It appears that such itinerant figure makers only began to come to England in large numbers following the fall of Napoleon. John Baptist Giannelli was in London by 1777, Anthony Sartini by 1785, Bartholomew Papera by about 1789 and Ambrose Pelligrini by 1790. When I started my online activities in the field of classical art, I offered my own Plaster Casts for Cast Drawing at a reasonable price at www.cast-drawing.com, as the market only offered expensive goods from real sculptors. Plaster casts, generally in the form of classical figures, were used as elegant supports for interior lighting, a trade which reached its height in the early 19th century. I bought this for £28 and used it a couple of this is a model of a road over rail bridge by s d mouldings now rare. In the second half of the 19th century the market for bronze statues for civic spaces and for statuettes for domestic interiors developed rapidly. He collected "as many of the most celebrated works⦠carved and cast, antique and modern as he was able to obtain anywhere". Italian figure makers in the 19th century, Bronze sculpture founders: a short history, Cast Collection - Victoria and Albert Museum, www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/sculpture/plastercasts/cast, The Cast Courts - Victoria and Albert Museum, British bronze sculpture founders and plaster figure makers, 1800-1980. In his 1968 autobiography, Wheeler gives a graphic description of ‘Charlie Smith’, whom he described as ‘a big man, slow of gait and with a high-pitched voice’. This burst of activity in collecting casts in London and elsewhere led the South Kensington Museum to draw up an 'International Convention of promoting universally Reproductions of Works of Art', which was signed in 1867 by fifteen European princes, to encourage the exchange of copies of 'the finest works of art which each country possesses' (see The Cast Courts - Victoria and Albert Museum). Records from The Glasgow School of Art document purchases and repairs from J. Giusti & Co. from as early as 1890, and casts related to those in the collection ⦠Most of the Italians came from a cast ⦠The casts at the University of Edinburgh were acquired at the end of the 19th century as a teaching collection to illustrate Classical art history. A further act was passed in 1814. Each cast is hand-finished in the studio, suggesting how the hand of the artist might affect a finished piece. Fig.3. The younger generation of English-born makers, with a few exceptions such as Robert Shout, did not play such a significant part in the popular market and diversified into related trades as did James Cockaine, James De Ville, Humphrey Hopper and William Pink. Italian figure makers in the 19th century 4. On our sites, advertisements and links to the Amazon.com site are integrated through Amazon, where we can earn money through reimbursement of advertising costs. Both Barbara Hepworth and Maurice Lambert used ‘the renowned plaster caster’, Domenico (‘Mac’) Mancini. In London directories, ‘plaster cast figure makers’ of apparently Italian origin, already common at the beginning of the 19th century, dominated as the century progressed (as analysed by Peter Malone). In the period under review, it is possible to identify a variety of such connections: James De Ville worked for Joseph Nollekens, Matthew Mazzoni for Richard Westmacott, James Cockaine and Peter Sarti for Francis Chantrey, Fernando Meacci for Edward Onslow Ford and Alfred Gilbert, the Smiths for Eric Gill and Charles Wheeler and ‘Mac’ Mancini for Barbara Hepworth. Our Collection. There were other aspects to the trade. Plaster Casts (900 plaster casts of classical sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum) The Plaster Casts database is a legacy database created as part of an EU R&D project in telecommunications in 1994. When visiting Tuscany in the 1890s, Hubert Crackanthorpe wrote home of a hermit at a tiny mountain chapel, ‘a splendid old boy with a flowing white beard’, who turned out to have lived for twenty years in the Euston Road, working as as a sculptors’ moulder for Mullins, Thomas (of Capri), Onslow Ford and others (David Crackanthorpe, Hubert Crackanthorpe and English Realism in the 1890s, 1977, pp.98-9). The special boxes seen below were made by the Dresden antiquary P.D. They are of interest to classical archaeologists, art historians, the history of collecting, curators, conservators, collectors and artists. Such was the British Museum's influence that the very word, formatore, crept into the English language as a result of its use by museum officials in the 1830s. Brucciani’s appointment to the South Kensington Museum was followed by his selection as formatore to the British Museum in 1857, following William Pink’s death. Some expeditions further afield were privately financed. For more details on bronze founders, see Bronze sculpture founders: a short history. Casts from both institutions eventually came to the Victoria and Albert Museum, from the former in 1916 and from the latter, in smaller numbers, following the disastrous Crystal Palace fire in 1936. Sir Thomas Lawrence’s Private Sitting Room (fig.4) was ornamented with an array of classical and other casts. In the early 19th century, Italian figure makers began to come to Britain in increasing numbers to produce ornaments for town and country houses and to sell cheap plaster figures as an itinerant trade. Lippert in the ⦠Not so many classical art type casts, but you might find something suitable and the prices are very reasonable. Make sure you order the plain white finish. They met with considerable success and were followed by Matthew Mazzoni by c.1803, Peter Sarti by 1816, Lewis Brucciani in c.1820 and Domenico Cardosi and Giovanni Franchi by c.1830, as well as others. [photo: View of Melbourneâs casts in 1872 (1 of 2 albumen silver photographs): detail (SLV H96.160/1789)] Introduction to Melbourneâs plaster cast collection The production of replicas of famous statues, already widespread in the ancient Roman period, grew in popularity and accessibility after 1850, with the availability of cheaper, good quality plaster casts⦠Every subscriber receives the free eBook „Drawing From Plaster Casts“ which also contains printable paper model nets for geometric objects to practise from. The Architectural Museum in London, founded in 1851, was one such collection. The market for plaster figures reached its height in the 19th century. On arriving at Chambery, the artist, or the captain of this company would set to work, despatching his boys through the city and the little towns and villages in the neighbourhood, to sell the figures which he had rapidly made. The practice of reproducing famous sculptures in plaster originally dates back to the sixteenth century when Leone Leoni assembled a collection of casts in Milan. He would arrive ‘carrying a large white enamelled bowl (for mixing Plaster of Paris), a roll of scrim (for reinforcing the plaster) and a collection of odd lengths of iron rods (for bracing the moulds)… He would have come to Chelsea, with all this paraphernalia, from Camden Town…. Another specialist side of the plaster trade was the supply of phrenological heads for phrenology, the study of human conduct through the measurement of the skull. The Gallery holds the most extensive collection of portraits in the world. Once the market had been exhausted, the master would send his moulds and tools to Geneva, and follow on foot with his troop, each of whom would carry a few figures to sell at towns and villages on the road. For art students who want to learn drawing from plaster casts of the for. 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