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

Table of Contents

Preface

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 The Garden of Plaster Casts: a different view on cast collections

List of Contributors

List of Figures

List of Colour Plates

Colour Plates

Index of Names and Places

Subject index