Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-h6jzd Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2025-02-22T23:36:10.175Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Studying the Technology of Renaissance Bronzes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2011

Francesca G. Bewer
Francesca G. Bewer*
Affiliation:
The Getty Conservation Institute, 4503 Glencoe Avenue, Marina Del Rey, California
Get access

Abstract

Late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century freestanding bronze statuary presents evidence that the artists drew from both Experimentation sad divrcse, technological traditions prevalent at the time. The indirect lost wax casting technique was refined for the manufacture of statuettes by the end of the sixteenth century in the Florentine workshop of the Flemish sculptor Giambologna. Combining art historical and scientific analysis with an understanding of materials and techniques provides an integrated method of study which helps art historians and conservators to clarify the manufacturing process of these works. This can serve to construct a broad historical picture of techniques in different workshops and regions and to date and authenticate particular bronzes. X-radiography is the most informative tool for identifying technological features in this kind of work. Surface examination, analyses of the metal (by x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy and atomic absorption spectrometry) and refractory molding materials (by polarized light microscopy and microprobe analysis) complement this information.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 352: Symposium – Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology IV , 1995 , 701
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1) Smith, J. Ashley, The Conservator, 1, 5–7 (1977).Google Scholar
2) Avery, C., Giambologna, the Complete Sculpture, Phaidon. Christie's Ltd., Oxford, 1987) pp. 144-45 and p. 264.Google Scholar
3) Baker, M., Stiädel Jahrbuch (N.S.) 12, 179–194 (1989).Google Scholar
4) Bewer, F., Giambologna's Workshop Practices: a Technological Analysis of His Bronze Statuettes, unpublished.Google Scholar
5) Bewer, F., The technological Investigation of Renaissance Bronzes, unpublished report submitted to the Getty Conservation Institute, Marina del Rey, Cal., 1993.Google Scholar
6) Biringucci, V., De la Pirotechnia - Libri X…, translated by Smith, C. S. and Gnudi, M. (MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1966).Google Scholar
7) Cellini, B., The Treatises on Goldsmithing and Sculpture, translated by Ashbee, C. R. (Dover Publications, New York 1967).Google Scholar
8) Christman, B., Gumprecht, H., Bruno, L. and Warner, C., A Technological Study of the Renaissance Bronzes in the Cleveland Museum of Art, unpublished report.Google Scholar
9) Dhanens, E., Jean Boulogne - Giovanni Bologna Fiammingo (Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Brussels 1956).Google Scholar
10) Giambologna, Sculptor to the Medici, catalogue edited by Avery, C. and Radcliffe, A. (Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1978) pp. 109–117.Google Scholar
11) Heikamp, D., Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 26, 245 (1963).Google Scholar
12) Lefébure, A., Musée du Louvre, Nouvelles acquisitions du département des Objets d'art 1980-1984 (Paris 1985) p. 61.Google Scholar
13) Milam, B., Reedy, C. and Sussman, C., Technical Analysis of Renaissance Bronzes for Provenance Studies: Pilot Project, unpublished report submitted to the Getty Conservation Institute, Marina del Rey, Cal., 1988.Google Scholar
14) Radcliffe, A., Apollo, 124, 183–87 (1986).Google Scholar
15) Radcliffe, A., Baker, M. and Gérard, M. M., The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Renaissance and later sculpture with works of art in bronze (Sotheby's Publications, London 1992).Google Scholar
16) Reedy, C., Archeomaterials 5, 121–163 (1991).Google Scholar
17) Reedy, C. and Meyers, P., Recent Advances in the Conservation and Analysis of Artifacts, (University of London, London, 1987) pp. 173–78.Google Scholar
18) Renaissance Master Bronzes from the Collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. catalogue edited by Jasper, M. Leithe, (Scala Books, London and Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service Washington, D.C., 1986).Google Scholar
19) Stone, R., Metropolitan Museum Journal, 16, 87–116 (1982).Google Scholar
20) Stone, R., White, R., and Indictor, N., in ICOM Committee for Conservation, Proceedings from the 9th Triennial Meeting, Dresden, German Democratic Republic, Los Angeles, 1990, II, 568–73.Google Scholar
21) Sturman, S. and Glinsman, L. (private communication)Google Scholar
23) Vasari, G., Vasari on Technique, translated by Maclehose, L. S., edited by Brown, G. Baldwin (republished by Dover Publications, New York, 1960) pp. 158–202.Google Scholar
24) Watson, K. and Avery, C. in Giambologna, Sculptor to the Medici, catalogue edited by Avery, C. and Radcliffe, A. (Arts Council of Great Britain, London, 1978).Google Scholar