The business of producing plaster figures became associated with immigrant Italian workers, mainly from the province of Lucca, who would come to London in groups and who would sell plaster figures on the streets. Our Collection. 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. Some expeditions further afield were privately financed. To take a single example of the market, the amateur watercolourist and floor cloth manufacturer, John Samuel Hayward (1778-1822), purchased various casts between 1800 and 1817, some from abroad but mainly from leading London figure makers of the time, Flaxman in 1800 and Shout in 1804, but subsequently from Italians, Papera from 1804 until 1817 as his main supplier, Giannelli in 1806 and then Mazzoni in 1816 and 1817 as his next important supplier (summary listing by Robert Barnes from bills for casts supplied to Hayward, V&A National Art Library, MSL/1943/920C). Let us examine the structure of the trade in more detail. A generation later, during the First World War, Brucciani & Co Ltd ran into financial difficulties as the museum and school of art markets declined. Advertising more than 300 plaster figures of classical and modern subjects. Substitutes for a Master: use technology to improve your artistic skills. 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). But even this reduced business foundered in the 1950s at the nadir of the taste for plaster casts. The database depends on Kurtz's Reception of Classical Art in Britain, an Oxford story of plaster casts … Search over 215,000 works, 150,000 of which are illustrated from the 16th Century to the present day. [photo: View of Melbourne’s casts in 1872 (1 of 2 albumen silver photographs): detail (SLV H96.160/1789)] Introduction to Melbourne’s 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… The special boxes seen below were made by the Dresden antiquary P.D. 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. By 1842, the Museum was offering a service to despatch casts to any part of the world (Synopsis of the contents of the British Museum, 1842, p.258, accessible through Google Book Search). 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. These appointments probably gave him the resources and incentive to open his splendid Galleria delle Belle Arti in Russell St in 1864. Although the trade declined as the century progressed, plaster figure makers could still be found describing themselves as phrenological bust makers, namely Alfred Mazzoni in 1861 and more especially Ambrose Vago in 1881. 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. 1. 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 … Retailing of plaster figures took place through street trading in London and elsewhere and by travel to provincial towns to set up temporary shop, in both cases with a view to the household market for popular and contemporary figures. While there had long been an interest in classical antiquity, the arrival of the Elgin marbles in London, and their display at the British Museum from 1816, opened up new markets for plaster casts as museums and academies in Britain and on the Continent began to develop more comprehensive cast collections for teaching purposes and for wider display, as will be discussed in more detail in section 4 below. Collections were assembled in boxes which could be transported. 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. They are of interest to classical archaeologists, art historians, the history of collecting, curators, conservators, collectors and artists. He was not the only artist collecting such casts. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. The Architectural Museum in London, founded in 1851, was one such collection. Getty Images Cynthia “Plaster Caster” Albritten When it comes to groupies, there’s no doubt … By the way: The Hue | Value | Chroma Munsell Color Chart printable eBook can also be purchased with the same discount code at 20% discount: Get practical information and free stuff for your classical atelier at home by subscribing to my newsletter. The authorities at the Crystal Palace in south London, which opened in 1854, sought casts of great works of art across Europe and beyond. 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. Each study is treated as a sight-size to cultivate a general competency for realistic drawing. They are of interest to classical archaeologists, art historians, the history of collecting, curators, conservators, collectors and artists. The number of Italian figure makers in and around 'Little Italy' and in the wider Holborn area, peaked in the early 1860s, judging from census records, as the third largest trade undertaken by Italians in the area, after street musicians and picture framemakers (Lucio Sponza, Italian Immigrants in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Realities and Images, 1988, p.328). 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. The Giusti Plaster Cast Collection highlights mould making and casting processes that were used to produce objects for retail and to repair existing plaster casts. 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 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. 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 … Meet Cynthia Plaster Caster, The Groupie Who Made Molds Out Of Rock Music’s Most Famous Penises For decades, Cynthia Plaster Caster tracked down legendary rock stars and made plaster molds of their penises. The Caproni Collection produces and sells plaster reproductions of famous sculptures. Nothing special and in any case not expensive. 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). Plaster Cast Interiors – There’s a wide range of weird and wonderful plaster casts available here. 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. 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. William Blake, plaster cast of head by James De Ville, published 1823 (National Portrait Gallery). Very Cheap, etching by John Thomas Smith, published 1815, from his Etchings of Remarkable Beggars, Itinerant Traders and other Persons (National Portrait Gallery). Suppliers included Peter Chenu, James De Ville, the Giannelli family, Francis Hardenberg, Humphrey Hopper, the Papera family and Robert Shout. Collecting by museums and academies 5. 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). Switchboard: +44 (0) 20 7306 0055, We are currently closed until spring 2023, while essential building works take place, 1. Discovery, reception and diffusion of classical art - Sculpture - The Classical Art Research Centre and The Beazley Archive - The University of Oxford Such figures were used to ornament interiors from the grandest country houses to the most ordinary homes. It appears that such itinerant figure makers only began to come to England in large numbers following the fall of Napoleon. 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. 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. In the second half of the 19th century the market for bronze statues for civic spaces and for statuettes for domestic interiors developed rapidly. Through the sculptor, Sir Richard Westmacott, and his agent Matthew Mazzoni, the British Museum supplied casts from the Elgin marbles to the court of Tuscany in 1818, and the following year to the courts of Rome, Naples and Prussia and the academy at Venice, in each case at the expense of the Treasury (Jenkins 1990 p.102). After that the code no longer works. 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). Sculptors’ moulders from 1880. Bartholomew Papera would carry ‘new things round to artists in baskets’, according to John Thomas Smith, who tells how Joseph Nollekens welcomed the opportunity to inspect such novelties although, on one occasion, he bridled when Papera named a rival, John Deare as the modeller. Click the link and you will be directed to the shop page were all my Plaster Casts are displayed: You can enter the code on the cart page as well as on the checkout page. The collection of the Museum of Classical Archaeology ranges from the largest of sculptures to the smallest of artefacts. 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. People were happy to accept my Plaster Casts, because it was exactly what they needed to learn drawing from plaster casts. 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. 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). 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.People were happy to accept my Plaster Casts, because it was exactly what they needed to learn drawing from plaster casts. 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. Italian figure makers in the 19th century 4. 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. 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. John Baptist Giannelli was in London by 1777, Anthony Sartini by 1785, Bartholomew Papera by about 1789 and Ambrose Pelligrini by 1790. 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. They would cross the Apennines and the Alps, marching in a little corps of twelve or fifteen. All about the academic Cast Drawing – The best resources, How the ateliers teach you to paint like the Old Masters. He collected "as many of the most celebrated works… carved and cast, antique and modern as he was able to obtain anywhere". The use of plaster casts in the early 19th century 3. April 2020. 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. 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. Print your own Munsell Color Reference Charts at home on your desktop inkjet printer! 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). Admiral Lord Nelson, plaster cast by Dominic Cardosi, 1830s or later, from bust by Franz Thaller and Matthias Ranson, 1801) (National Portrait Gallery). Both Barbara Hepworth and Maurice Lambert used ‘the renowned plaster caster’, Domenico (‘Mac’) Mancini. The Gallery holds the most extensive collection of portraits in the world. Every piece is made in-house and by-hand. 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. They can be finished in a variety of patinas. 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. By the late 19th century, the sculptors’ moulder had become an established specialist role. Our cast collection is one of very few surviving plaster cast collections in the world today – and we have more than 450 of our casts on display in the Cast Gallery, including our famous painted … 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 recent resurgence of interest in the use of these aids to teach art fundamentals has inspired Statue.com to create a collection of Artist Cast … 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). 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. 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. More details of the individual plaster figure makers and sculptors' moulders discussed in this account can be found in the online directory, British bronze sculpture founders and plaster figure makers, 1800-1980. Their moulds and a few tools were sent on ahead by wagon to Chambery, capital of the French department of Savoy, where they would make their first stay. His overalls were stiff and heavy with plaster splashings and were never cleaned and his boots never scraped after a day’s paddling around in gypsum… But what a worker he was, and what skill he had acquired in a long life and in the service of many of the leading sculptors of the day.’. He identified the importance of the Act of Parliament passed in 1798 relating to ‘Making New Models and Casts of Busts’, a form of copyright which conferred exclusive rights for 14 years on persons who created new models or casts of human or animal figures if marked with publication details. 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. Remember that the code is only valid until 30. At this time Meacci was calling himself a piece moulder and figure maker on his invoice paper. 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. However, the products listed on Amazon were not always and in every country available. A nice selection of plaster casts of the human form, as well as plaster geometric shapes. 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