French Bronze Sculpture

The papers in this volume examine the origins and cross-fertilization of ideas and technology related to the making of bronzes in France between the Renaissance and the 18th century from the perspectives chronology, geography and typology. The production of specific sculptors and founders, or of specific works of art are considered in terms of the technology, the documentation of both the processes and the persons involved e.g. sculptors, founders, merchants, etc. and how these may have impacted the stylistic and technical outcome. Also presented are state-of-the-art research methods and their application to multi-disciplinary studies – including historical and archeological investigations, analytical studies of materials (e.g. metal, core and patina), as well as experimental reconstructions of metallurgical processes. Text in English and French. Contents: From Primaticcio to Houdon: some key points – Francesco Bordoni: spécificités techniques chez un sculpteur-fondeur du 17e siècle – David Bourgarit, Francesca Bewer et Geneviève Bresc-Bautier; Barthélemy Prieur fondeur, son atelier, ses méthodes de travail – Regina Seelig-Teuwen, David Bourgarit et Francesca Bewer; De Dame Tholose au Mercure volant: fondre en Languedoc aux 16e et 17e siècles – Alain de Beauregard et Pascal Julien; Casts after the antique by Hubert Le Sueur – John Griswold, Catherine Hess and Jane Bassett with Geneviève Bresc-Bautier, Michel Bouchard and Rupert Harris; Keller et les autres: les fondeurs des jardins de Versailles – Alexandre Maral avec la collaboration d Antoine Amarger et David Bourgarit; Keller and his alloy: copper, some zinc and a little bit of tin – Jean-Marie Welter; Jean-Antoine Houdon: sculptor and founder – Jane Bassett and Guilhem Scherf; Small castings and multiples – The Dresden bronze of the Bath of Apollo: a model, not a copy – Françoise de La Moureyre and Uwe Peltz; Les bronzes décoratifs à Paris autour de 1700. À propos des groupes attribués à François Lespingola (1644 1705) – Philippe Malgouyres; Bronzes dorés: a technical approach to examination and authentication of French gilt bronze – Arlen Heginbotham; A Prussian manufactory of gilt bronzes à la française: Johann Melchior Kambly (1718 84) and the adoption of Parisian savoir-faire– Tobias Locker; Les mortiers, objets méconnus des bronziers français– Bertrand Bergbauer; Casting techniques: transmission and evolution – Casting sculpture and cannons in bronze: Jehan Barbet’s Angel of 1475 in the Frick Collection – Julia Day and Denise Allen; The cut-back core process in late 17th-and 18th-century French bronzes – Jane Bassett and Francesca G. Bewer; Témoins archéologiques d un atelier de bronzier fonctionnant à Saint-Denis à la fin du 16e siècle – Olivier Meyer, Nicolas Thomas et Michaël Wyss; The foundry at the hippodrome: a French foundry for monumental sculpture in Stockholm around 1700 – Linda Hinners; Boffrand’s and Mariette’s Descriptions of the casting of Louis XIV and Louis XV on Horseback – Anne-Lise Desmas; Fonte à la cire perdue en moule carapace. A travers les recherches et les réalisations de la fonderie de Coubertin – Jean Dubos.
The papers in this volume examine the origins and cross-fertilization of ideas and technology related to the making of bronzes in France between the Renaissance and the 18th century from the perspectives chronology, geography and typology. The production of specific sculptors and founders, or of specific works of art are considered in terms of the technology, the documentation of both the processes and the persons involved e.g. sculptors, founders, merchants, etc. and how these may have impacted the stylistic and technical outcome.

Also presented are state-of-the-art research methods and their application to multi-disciplinary studies – including historical and archeological investigations, analytical studies of materials (e.g. metal, core and patina), as well as experimental reconstructions of metallurgical processes.