Plaster Casts: Making, Collecting and Displaying from Classical Antiquity to the Present

Description

This volume originates from an international conference held at Oxford University in 2007. Texts by classical archaeologists, art historians, students of the history of collecting, curators, conservators and artists address objects and themes from antiquity to the present day, ancient Egypt to 20th-century Mexico and contemporary Europe. They explore status, reception and functions of casts as well as hands-on issues, such as the making, trading, display and conservation of plaster casts. A handbook for students, academics, curators and collectors, the text will become a standard work on the role of plaster casts in the history of Western sculpture. Frontmatter Table of Contents Introduction Antiquity Plaster Casts in Antiquity The Baiae Casts and the Uniqueness of Roman Copies The Renaissance Plaster and Plaster Casts in Renaissance Italy “Giving away the moulds will cause no damage to his Majesty’s casts” – New Documents on the Vienna Jüngling and the Sixteenth-Century Dissemination of Casts after the Antique in the Holy Roman Empire “Makinge of moldes for the walles” – The Stuccoes of Nonsuch: materials, methods and origins Making and Distribution from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century “Moulded from the best originals of Rome” – Eighteenth-Century Production and Trade of Plaster Casts after Antique Sculpture in Germany Laocoön in Scandinavia – Uses and Workshops 1587 onwards How the Smiths Made a Living Artists’ Academies Plaster Casts and Memory Technique: Nicolas Vleughels’ display of cast collections after the antique in the French Academy in Rome (1725–1793) Incorporating Antiquity – The Berlin Academy of Arts’ Plaster Cast Collection from 1786 until 1815: acquisition, use and interpretation Art and Pedagogy in the Plaster Cast Collection of the Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City Artists’ Workshops Picturing the Use, Collecting and Display of Plaster Casts in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Artists’ Studios in Antwerp and Brussels Modern Sculpture in the Making: Antonio Canova and plaster casts Chantrey and the Original Models Live Body Moulding and Maternal Devotion in Marcello’s Studio Shattering the Mould: Medardo Rosso and the poetics of plaster “Impressionism Solidified” – Umberto Boccioni’s Works in Plaster and the Definition of Modernity in Sculpture Outside In: the after-life of the plaster cast in contemporary culture Inside Out: a process for production Conservation The Plaster Decoration of the Choir Screens in the Church of Our Lady in Halberstadt: a current conservation project The Restoration of Two Plaster Casts Acquired by Velázquez in the Seventeenth Century: the Hercules and Flora Farnese The Contribution of Plaster Sculptures and Casts to Successful Conservation Interventions at the National Gallery of Greece, Athens Architectural Models and Collections after Gems Plaster Models and Plaster Casts of Classical Architecture and its Decoration A Dactyliotheca by James Tassie and Other Collections of Gem Impressions at the University of Göttingen A Munificent Gift: cast collections of gem impressions from the Sir Henry Wellcome Trust Casting Nations: The National Museum “The Question of Casts” – Collecting and Later Reassessment of the Cast Collections at South Kensington The Reproductive Continuum: plaster casts, paper mosaics and photographs as complementary modes of reproduction in the nineteenth-century museum Plaster Casts and Postcards: the postcard edition of the Musée de Sculpture Comparée at Paris More Valuable than Originals? The Plaster Cast Collection in the National Museum of Prague (1818–2008): its history and predecessors Building a Small Albertinum in Moscow: the correspondence between Georg Treu and Ivan Tsvetaev Cast Collecting in the United States Colonial Contexts: the changing meanings of the cast collection of the Auckland War Memorial Museum Display and the Future of Plaster Casts Sir John Soane’s Casts as Part of his Academy of Architecture at 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields The Museum as a Manifesto of Taste and Ideology: the twentieth-century plaster cast collection of archaeology and art at the University of Padua Living with Plaster Casts Le jardin des plâtres: un autre regard sur les collections de moulages Backmatter