Sculpture En Bronze

a c t a s d e l c o n g r e s o i n t e r n a c i o n a l p r o c e e d i n g s o f t h e i n t e r n a t i o n a l s y m p o s i u m Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, octubre de 2 01 1 Edición a cargo de stephan f. schröder Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2012 0504_06 CUPPERI##4.qxp:giordano 09/12/12 22:03 Página 66 w a l t e r c u p p e r i 0504_06 CUPPERI##4.qxp:giordano 09/12/12 22:03 Página 68 a u t o r i a l i t à m u l t i p l a e t r a n s c u l t u r a l i t à n e i r i t r a t t i l e o n i a n i d e l p r a d o 51. Leone e Pompeo Leoni, Filippo II, 1549-64. bronzo, 1,69 m. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado [e-272] 0504_06 CUPPERI##4.qxp:giordano 09/12/12 22:03 Página 69 74 w a l t e r c u p p e r i

This book presents a new study of Greek large-scale bronze statuary of the late Archaic and Classical periods. It examines the discovery, origin, style, date, artistic attribution, identification, and interpretation of the surviving bronzes, and focuses in particular on their technical features and casting techniques. It contains over 170 plates of photographs and drawings to illustrate its discussion.

It also places the development of the casting techniques in connection with the stylistic evolution in Greek free-standing sculpture. During the Classical period, artists preferred bronze to marble when creating their contrapposto figures. Indisputably, bronze gave particular freedom to artists in creating three-dimensional figures. In addition, the evolution in style encouraged the development of the uses of bronze to serve the new needs and tendencies in sculpture during the late Archaic and especially the Classical period. Through the examination of how technical matters affect style, this book presents fresh interpretations of these important monuments of Greek art and offers a new approach in the field of Greek free-standing bronze sculpture.

At sixteenth-century courts, the production of almost identical portraits of the ruler made it possible to visualize social ties by establishing specific forms of exclusivity, similarity, and distinction through the distribution of several specimens and the differentiation of each version.

Archival research and forays into the stores of the Civic Museum of Catania have led to the rediscovery of fragments of bronze statuary deriving from the two most important local collections of the eighteenth century: the collection of the Prince of Biscari and that of the Benedictine monks. Although these are only disiecta membra, the fragments in Catania contribute significantly to the understanding of bronze statuary of the Roman period. The examination of them has led to a more complete study of  technical, typological and chronological aspects.

L'objet de cet article est de revenir sur les bronzes attribués à François Lespingola, en s'interrogeant d'abord sur la véritable activité du sculpteur, telle qu'elle est évoquée par les sources. Par ailleurs, l'examen de différentes versions des bronzes que l'on lui attribue montre une réelle diversité de mise en oeuvre dont il faudrait rendre compte. Ceci pose la question plus large des acteurs de la production des bronzes destinés au décor intérieur à Paris autour de 1700 : donneurs de modèles, sculpteurs, sculpteurs en bronze, fondeurs, ciseleurs… Enfin, cette production doit être articulée avec les groupes de bronze issus des ateliers florentins au début du 18 e siècle.

This article is based on the conclusions I drew on the casting technique of the bronze Antikythera ephebe in my MRes and my PhD theses: Dafas, K. A., 2008. Ο Χάλκινος Έφηβος των Αντικυθήρων, Master’s Thesis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Thessaloniki) 45-56 and Dafas, K. A., 2013. Greek Large-Scale Bronze Statuary Revisited: The Late Archaic and Classical Periods, PhD Thesis, King’s College London, University of London (London) 103-109, respectively.

This article discusses the technical features and the casting technique of the so-called Antikythera ephebe, a bronze statue found in the sea off the small island of Antikythera in the beginning of the twentieth century. While the discovery, style, date, artistic attribution and identification of the statue have been discussed previously in scholarship, a number of problematic issues still remain to be resolved, the most important of which is the casting technique. Through scrutiny of the technical features of the statue, this article sheds light on the exact casting method used for its production, thus, contributing to our better understanding of contemporary casting techniques used in Greek monumental bronze statuary during the late Classical period.