A plaster cast is a copy made in
plaster
Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for Molding (decorative), moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of ...
of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
,
building
A building, or edifice, is an enclosed structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently in one place, such as a house or factory (although there's also portable buildings). Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and fun ...
, a
face
The face is the front of an animal's head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may aff ...
, a
pregnant belly, a
fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – particularly in
palaeontology
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
(a track of dinosaur footprints made in this way can be seen outside the
Oxford University Museum of Natural History
The Oxford University Museum of Natural History, sometimes known simply as the Oxford University Museum or OUMNH, is a museum displaying many of the University of Oxford's natural history specimens, located on Parks Road in Oxford, England. It a ...
).
Sometimes a blank block of plaster itself was carved to produce mock-ups or first drafts of sculptures (usually relief sculptures) that would ultimately be sculpted in stone, by measuring exactly from the cast, for example by using a
pointing machine
A pointing machine is a measuring tool used by stone sculptors and woodcarvers to accurately copy plaster, clay or wax sculpture models into wood or stone.
In essence the device is a pointing needle that can be set to any position and then ...
. These are still described as plaster casts. Examples of these by
John Flaxman
John Flaxman (6 July 1755 – 7 December 1826) was a British sculptor and draughtsman, and a leading figure in British and European Neoclassicism. Early in his career, he worked as a modeller for Josiah Wedgwood's pottery. He spent several ye ...
may be found in the central rotunda of the library at
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
, and elsewhere in the University's collections. It may also describe a finished original sculpture made out of plaster, though these are rarer.
Method
Plaster
Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for Molding (decorative), moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of ...
is applied to the original to create a mould or
cast
Cast may refer to:
Music
* Cast (band), an English alternative rock band
* Cast (Mexican band), a progressive Mexican rock band
* The Cast, a Scottish musical duo: Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis
* ''Cast'', a 2012 album by Trespassers William
* ...
(that is, a
negative impression) of the original. This mould is then removed and fresh plaster is poured into it, creating a copy in plaster of the original. Usually very elaborate moulds were made out of several to even dozens of pieces, to cast the more difficult undercut sculptures. Plaster is not flexible, therefore the moulds were made as 3D jigsaw puzzles for easy removal of the original and the cast from the mould. Later gelatine, rubber and silicone moulds were used, backed by plaster or polyester for support.
History
Early
The practice of reproducing famous sculptures in plaster originally dates back to the sixteenth century when
Leone Leoni
:''For the early 17th-century composer, see Leone Leoni (composer)''.
Leone Leoni (ca. 1509 – 22 July 1590) was an Italian sculptor of international outlook who travelled in Italy, Germany, Austria, France, Spain and the Netherlands. Leoni is re ...
assembled a collection of casts in
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
. He collected "as many of the most celebrated works… carved and cast, antique and modern as he was able to obtain anywhere". Such private collections, however, remained modest and uncommon until the 18th century.
Classical sculpture
Use of such casts was particularly prevalent among
classicist
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
s of the 18th and 19th centuries, and by 1800 there were extensive collections in Berlin, Paris, Vienna and elsewhere. By creating copies of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures held at various museums across Europe in this way, a reference collection of all the best and most representative sculptural types could be formed, at a fraction of the cost of purchasing original sculptures, which scholars could consult without necessarily having to travel abroad to see all the originals. These casts could also be used in experiments in
polychromy
Polychrome is the "practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." The term is used to refer to certain styles of architecture, pottery or sculpture in multiple colors.
Ancient Egypt
Colossal statu ...
(reconstructing paint layers found on sculptures), reconstruction (e.g.
Adolf Furtwängler
Johann Michael Adolf Furtwängler (30 June 1853 – 10 October 1907) was a German archaeologist, teacher, art historian and museum director. He was the father of the conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler and grandfather of the German archaeologist Andr ...
's reconstruction of the
Lemnian Athena
The ''Lemnian Athena'', or ''Athena Lemnia'', was a classical Greek statue of the goddess Athena. According to geographer Pausanias (1.28.2), the original bronze cast was created by the sculptor Phidias circa 450–440 BCE, for Athenians living ...
from pieces found in different places), and for filling holes in a museum's collections of actual sculpture (e.g. the British Museum sent casts of some of its Mesopotamian collection to
the Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
in return for a cast of the Louvre's
Code of Hammurabi
The Code of Hammurabi is a Babylonian legal text composed 1755–1750 BC. It is the longest, best-organised, and best-preserved legal text from the ancient Near East. It is written in the Old Babylonian dialect of Akkadian, purportedly by Hamm ...
).
Formula plaster of Paris- idiota
Other ancient cultures
The technique was also applied later that century to
reliefs from
Ancient Egypt and
frieze
In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...
s from
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
(examples of both of which may be seen on the North-East Staircase and in Room 52 of the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
), as well as to medieval and Renaissance sculptures (as may be seen in the
Cast Courts at the
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
, which were a product of growing interest in medieval art at that time and the resulting desire to have a 'reference collection' of such art). In the early 19th century, for example, perhaps as an expression of national pride, casts were made of outstanding national monuments particularly in France and Germany.
Cast collections
As well as those locations mentioned above, classical cast collections may be seen at the
Museum of Classical Archaeology at the
University of Cambridge
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
, at the
Ashmolean Museum
The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of ...
in Oxford, in the
Royal Cast Collection in
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
, and the
Bellarmine Museum of Art
The Fairfield University Art Museum, formerly the Bellarmine Museum of Art, is an art museum located on the renovated lower level of Bellarmine Hall on the campus of Fairfield University in Fairfield, Connecticut. The museum features Classical ...
at
Fairfield University
Fairfield University is a private Jesuit university in Fairfield, Connecticut. It was founded by the Jesuits in 1942. In 2017, the university had about 4,100 full-time undergraduate students and 1,100 graduate students, including full-time ...
. The British Museum also holds classical casts, but these are currently all in storage.
External links
Plaster cast collections database of over 175 locations worldwideConference on the use of plaster castsCast Collection, CopenhagenUniversity of Cambridge: Museum of Classical Archaeology
{{DEFAULTSORT:Plaster Cast
Sculpture materials
Sculpture techniques