OT? making different size castings of a bronze sclupture

maybe a bit off topic. How does an artist make a large bronze casting for a public statute and then make miniature versions to be sold for collectors.
Is the original model made full size in clay, or whatever is used in modern times, or is it made small and somehow copied to make different size molds?
On the same topic I wonder if they still make full size clay models of cars.
Bill D.

Link below just because I bet they made a smaller version first to see what it would look like.

Tsar Bell - Wikipedia

Can't help you but that's an interesting link!

Bill D said:

Link below just because I bet they made a smaller version first to see what it would look like.

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In the past they did make smaller versions - there's several smaller Statue of Libertys around the world that were made first, before the big one.

I just heard about the process from this fellow when he was in my shop - David A. Daniels, Sculptor
He made clays whatever size the bronze was to be, usually the small one first. He's retired now, there may be new ways that he didn't use.

Sculptors often begin a large statue by making a small model of clay or wax. The process is so normal that there is a word in the art world for the model: maquette. Once the model is considered finished, it can be measured and the measurements transferred to a larger version. I think I have seen references to some artists having their bronze foundry make more than one size casting of a statue when more or less small numbers of finished works were to be sold. Marble sculpture can also begin with a model, but a foundry is not involved and there is only one finished statue.

These days, wood statues are mass produced with CNC routers that can do any scale from a digital model. The digital model can be a scan of a maquette. But mechanical copiers have been around for over 200 years. James Watt had one in his workshop when he died in 1819. It could have been decades old then. The workshop is on display in the London Science Museum, showing the machine and several white (marble?) busts that could be copied. I built a similar machine to make wood pistol grips in 1982. The American engineer Thomas Blanchard invented a machine for copying at 1:1 an iron pattern to carve gun stocks, shoe lasts and axe handles in 1818.

People in China can make bronze copies of any work of art, Chinese or Western, modern or ancient, and in any convenient size, then sell them on eBay. There was a thread on PM about them recently. Museums often have gift shops with inexpensive small scale copies of various statues on sale. I bought several ancient Egyptian examples back around 1960, a large hawk made of plaster and some little figures made of some cast lead or tin alloy.

Larry

in the real world, it is usually NOT the "artist" that scales up the maquette, but the foundry or fabricator.

the production of art has been a semi- industrial process at least since the ancient Egyptians, and the romanticized concept of a single hand creating a masterpiece is often not the case.

perhaps in the case of a few, Leonardo for instance, more so, that is why there are so few Leonardos.

pantograph copying rigs have been around for millennia, and can enlarge or reduce, as required. it is a tedious point by point process, but not particularly mysterious.

Redirect Notice

Gutzon Borglum made a pretty huge "mini" of Mt Rushmore, and use jib-style cranes that dropped plumb bobs to check the faces for depth/accuracy as the blasting/chiseling progressed. PS, casting may involve many people to "upscale" the maquettes, but by and large stone sculpture does not. So much so that many sculptors such a Buonarroti worked with individual helpers in near secrecy for months at a time on individual commissions. And of course.....the entire Sistine chapel ceiling.

haha! yes E.F. I was in fact going to cite M. Buonarroti (thats Michelangelo folks) as an example as well. was thinking of the Sistine chapel too..

That's what bugs me...the 'artist' gets all the credit and the 'craftsmen' who actually made the item go unknown. We all know the vision is one thing but actually making it is another.

On the topic of the previous thread, I've since bought a couple 'original' bronzes. They're not...the most attractive...but at least not knock-offs. Here's one by Itzik Benshalom:

I went on a tour of an art foundry several years ago. They were doing large scale art castings As well as small. They were working from smaller scale sculptures and scaling them up for the artist. But them the artist would come in and clay in all the fine details. The foundry would them cut up the large sculpture and then take a cast off the outside of the sculpture. They then laid clay for the wall thickness in the mould and took a mould off the other side. Thus making the casting hollow. Getting fine detail in heavy wall sections is difficult not to mention the cost and weight of casting solid. Finally the pieces were all tigged together and the welding blended so well in most cases it was not visible.

When I was speaking with the owner of the foundry who had started out doing industrial castings he mentioned that if he were to ever start doing industrial castings again it would have to be a separate facility. The culture and mindset of the work was so different. Many of his moulders were art school grads. The grinding room guys had dozens of different die grinders all set up with different burrs.

Years ago I knew a sculptor (and banjo payer) Danny Sinclair, who trained in Italy in marble carving and the technique of sculpture enlargement and reduction. It was an ancient tradition, using simple tools and math, I wish I could remember more about it. I recall that he did the enlargement, from a small model, of the giant bronze sculptures at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. They were a pair of huge, headless nudes, which caused a great deal of controversy at the time. Just as well he was anonymous!

Just found him online, glad to see he's still going strong.
Daniel Sinclair Sculpture
DMS Studios - Stone Fireplace Mantels & Architectural Stone Carving

I wonder if those sculptures were copies of originals from the 1932 Olympics?

Bill D

Art Competitions at the 1932 Los Angeles Summer Games: Mixed Sculpturing, Statues | Olympics at Sports-Reference.com

GregSY said:

That's what bugs me...the 'artist' gets all the credit and the 'craftsmen' who actually made the item go unknown. We all know the vision is one thing but actually making it is another. :View attachment 218972

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Isn't that always the case, it's the same with designers of almost anything you care to mention, .yes they have the idea, ...but it's always down to the craftsmen to translate the ideas and make them work.

But come the grand unveiling and from there on it's always ''this is X designed by Y'' etc etc and never a mention of the poor sods who sweated blood and tears over it, ..like they were mere drones