Sculpture and Carving

(b Dublin, Nov 27, 1936).

Irish painter, sculptor and printmaker. He studied at the National College of Art in Dublin and St Martin’s School of Art and Goldsmith’s College in London. His early paintings, which included landscapes such as Winter (c. 1966; Dublin, Allied Irish Bank) and life-size nude self-portraits, were indebted to German Expressionism and to the work of Alberto Giacometti in their warm-toned colours and loose application of paint or pastel. These were followed by painted and sculpted portraits of his wife and friends in bronze or fibreglass, such as Head of L.T. (1971; Dublin, Dawson Gal.). From 1971 he concentrated on a recurring image of a small, primitive sculpture as a sign for himself, reduced in mocking fashion to a formalized bust or head. He related this fascination with identity to the character of Don Quixote, for example in the painted wood sculpture Don Quixote (1980–81; Dublin, Allied Irish Bank); sometimes he conceived of this image as two selves, as in the etching ...

(b London, 1864; d London, Dec 6, 1938).

British medallist and sculptor. He studied in London at the National Art Training School, under Edward Onslow Ford; and in Paris, where he was influenced by the work of Jules-Clément Chaplain and Oscar Roty. In 1886 he produced a medallic portrait of the Khedive of Egypt and in the following year was commissioned by the Royal Mint to produce designs for the Egyptian coinage. The 1890s saw an increasing number of commissions for medals: from the City of London for the Visit of the King and Queen of Denmark, the Opening of Tower Bridge and the Diamond Jubilee; from the Geological Society for the Joseph Prestwich medal; and from the Royal College of Science for the Thomas Huxley memorial medal (all London, B.M.). In 1903, following the death of George William de Saulles, Bowcher stepped in to finish the great seal of Edward VII. He was a founder-member of the Royal Society of British Sculptors and until the 1930s exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy. In the early 1920s he produced, under the direction of M. H. Spielmann (...

(b Lyon, 1642; d Frankfurt am Main, Aug 13, 1713).

German medallist and wax-modeller. She was the daughter of Georg Pfründt, wax-modeller, medallist and engraver. In 1659 she married the medallist Johann Bartholomäus Braun (fl 1636–74; d 1684); thus before 1659 her works are signed a.m.p., and after that year, a.m.b. Braun first worked in Nuremberg, and later in Frankfurt am Main, becoming particularly recognized as a portraitist. In the style of Alessandro Abondio she produced wax portrait reliefs of numerous members of the princely houses of the Netherlands, Germany and other countries; on two occasions she was summoned to the Viennese court. An example of her work is a portrait of Ludwig William, Margrave of Baden (Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Mus.). Braun also modelled free-standing wax figures, such as the signed statuette of Count Karl in armour (Kassel, Hess. Landesmus.). She did not, however, limit herself to portraits, but also executed mythological scenes, such as the signed sculpture of the ...

(b Schavli, Kovno [now Kaunas], June 12, 1871; d New York, April 5, 1924).

American medallist of Lithuanian origin. He trained as a seal-engraver under his father and worked as a jewellery engraver and type cutter. In 1890 he went to New York, where he worked as a die engraver of badges, and in 1898 to Paris to study at the Académie Julian and later with Oscar Roty. He first exhibited medals in the early years of the 20th century. The influence of Roty is apparent in the low relief and soft-edged naturalism and also in the inclusion of flat expanses of metal in his designs. He occasionally ventured into sculpture, as in the Schenley Memorial Fountain (bronze; Pittsburgh, PA, Schenley Park), but he was best known for his medals and plaquettes, both struck and cast, and his sensitive portraits assured his popularity. The powerful head of President Roosevelt on the Panama Canal medal (bronze, 1908) and the tender Shepherdess plaquette (electrotype, 1907...

(b Damblain, Lorraine, c. 1550; d ?Montbéliard, c. 1612).

French metalworker and medallist. He was born of Huguenot parents and moved in 1579 to Montbéliard (Mömpelgard), then in Germany, to escape religious persecution. In 1585 he was appointed Graveur de son Excellence to Duke Frederick I of Württemburg-Mömpelgard (d 1608) and specialized in cutting dies for coins and medals. It is also likely that he worked as a Bildschnitzer or Formschneider, making models for goldsmiths’ work, although there is no firm evidence for this. He is best known for his fine pewter vessels decorated in relief with densely packed Mannerist ornament (e.g. ewer, c. 1600; Paris, Louvre). Because of the softness of the metal these would not have been suitable for practical use and were intended as a cheap, decorative substitute for fine plate. The Temperantia dish (so-called from its ornament, c. 1585; Dresden, Mus. Ksthandwerk) and accompanying ewer are in the same style as goldsmiths’ work of the Fontainebleau school. It has been suggested that the sharply defined surface of Briot’s vessels indicates that the ornament may have been struck by steel dies, although whether the vessels were formed from assembled struck components or cast and then struck is not clear. His vessels were widely imitated, especially by the Nuremberg pewterer Caspar Enderlein and in ceramics by Bernard Palissy....

(b c. 1579; d London, 1646).

French medallist, also active in England and Scotland. Briot succeeded Philippe Danfrie (i) as Engraver-General of French coinage in 1606. His tenure of the office was stormy, partly because of his frequent absences while working at the mints of Nancy, Charleville and Sedan and partly because of his scheming to gain control of all the mints in France through the introduction of his own mechanized system of coin production. His invention was, however, both a mechanical and a financial failure, forcing him to flee to London in 1625. He was appointed engraver at the Royal Mint and in 1635 became Master of the Scottish Mint.

Briot was responsible for the coronation medal of Louis XIII (1610; e.g. London, BM), whose portrait is probably from a wax by Guillaume Dupré, and a series of small, jetton-like struck medals made to commemorate events in England during the reign of Charles I. His other works include a large cast medal of the King’s physician ...

Alloy of copper and tin. In the West bronze was largely superseded by Brass, the alloy of copper and zinc, by the 5th century ad; many brass artworks, however, are commonly described as ‘bronze’. In early times Classical languages had just one term for copper and copper alloys, thus for example the Chinese had the word tang, the Tibetans li, the Greeks khalkos and the Romans aes. (For copper–zinc alloys produced by cementation (see Brass, §II) the Greeks had the term oreikhalkos and the Romans the related term aurichalcum, but these were not often used in general literature.)

The equivalent Anglo-Saxon general term was ‘brass’, and up to the 17th century this simply meant copper or one of its alloys. Various terms for copper–zinc alloys, such as latten and maslin, were in use in the late medieval and early post-medieval periods (see Blair and Blair, pp. 81–106). At about this time the term ...

(b Hexham, Northumberland, Feb 13, 1966).

English painter and sculptor. He completed a foundation course at Norwich School of Art (1984–5), a BFA at Bath Academy of Art (1985–8), and an MFA at Goldsmiths’ College, London (1990–92). His paintings typically reproduce the work of artists such as Frank Auerbach and Karel Appel in a slick, ‘photographic’ manner. He arrived at this manner of working after basing paintings on photographs of modernist buildings; a sense of thwarted utopianism became a central tenet in his later work. His first painting after Auerbach, Atom Age Vampire (oil on canvas, 0.82×0.72 m, 1991; priv. col., see 1996 exh. cat., p. 19), was a minutely copied, flattened rendering of the thickly impastoed original. Although such works are critical of the expressionist doctrine of emotional investment in gesture and materiality, they also retain an element of adolescent fantasy and absorption, as suggested by the title. Another strand of Brown’s art consists of copies of science fiction illustrations by Chris Foss (...

(b Geisslingen, Feb 7, 1742; d Durlach, 1811).

German medallist and engraver. In 1768 he began his career in Augsburg, where he exhibited medals of the municipal curators Langenmantel and Amman and of Paul von Stetten. He later went to Karlsruhe, where he became court medallist and die-engraver; he also worked in Durlach. Stylistically, his medals, often initialled j.m.b., closely resemble those of Franz Andreas Schega and Johann Karl Hedlinger. Portrait medals of Charles V, Duke of Württemberg and Charles Frederick, Margrave of Baden were Bückle’s best works. He also executed the commemorative medal of Count Demetrius Galitzin (1793) and a silver medal (1773; Domanig, no. 771) depicting a hunting scene, awarded as a prize by the School of Forestry and Hunting Science. His pupil J. H. Boltschhauser became a medal engraver to the Mannheim court.

(bapt London, Oct 30, 1730; d London, Feb 1814).

English gem-engraver, medallist, wax modeller and miniature painter. Of humble origins, he was self-taught as an engraver but studied drawing and modelling at the St Martin’s Lane Academy and in the gallery of casts belonging to Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond, known as the Duke of Richmond’s Academy. He exhibited with the Society of Artists, of which he was a director, from 1760 until 1769, and gained three premiums from the Society of Arts between 1763 and 1766. In 1769 he enrolled at the Royal Academy as a student, became an ARA the following year and in 1771 was the first of the elected Academicians, presenting as his diploma work a cornelian intaglio of Neptune (London, RA). He enjoyed great success and attracted wide patronage for more than two decades, engraving principally antique subjects (e.g. Sabina, yellow sard intaglio; Baltimore, MD, Walters A.G.), allegorical scenes (e.g. Sacrifice to Minerva...

(b Lahore, 1962; d London, Sept 1994).

British sculptor of Pakistani birth. He studied at Goldsmiths College, London (1987–90). After initially working in a wide variety of media, Butt settled exclusively on installations in the late 1980s. Because of his early death little of his work has become widely known, but that which has demonstrates by an interest in alchemy and a thematic preoccupation with seduction, pleasure and danger. Transmission (1990; see 1995 exh. cat., p. 65) comprises a circle of objects that look like open books, resting on the floor. The glass pages reveal a triffid motif that is lit by dangerous ultra-violet light. The series Familiars includes some of his best-known work and is concerned with the dichotomy between physical impurity and divine grace. It also derives from his interest in chemical properties, each of the three parts employing a different member of the chemical family of halogens: Substance Sublimation Unit (1992; see 1995 exh. cat., pp. 72–3) employs iodine confined in tubes set up in a ladder formation (the form was inspired by the mythical Santa Scala, or Holy Ladder of Perfection); ...

(b Guatemala City, Sept 16, 1781; d Guatemala City, Nov 21, 1845).

Guatemalan painter, printmaker, and medallist. He entered the mint in 1795 as an apprentice engraver but on the recommendation of its director, Pedro Garci-Aguirre, also became Master Corrector at the Escuela de Dibujo de la Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País, Guatemala City, in 1796, holding the post until 1804. He continued working at the mint until 1809 and demonstrated outstanding skill both as a medallist and engraver of coins and as an engraver and etcher. He returned to the mint in 1823 as second engraver, remaining in the post until his death.

Despite the quality of his work as a printmaker and medallist, Cabrera gained artistic recognition especially as a miniature painter, working mostly in watercolour on ivory in a meticulous technique. He produced some miniatures on religious themes and others of birds, but the majority, measuring no more than 50 mm in height or width, were portraits of members of the Guatemalan aristocracy and bourgeoisie. It is not known exactly how many he produced, but from the middle of the 1830s he began to number them, starting from 500; the highest known number of the approximately 200 authenticated miniatures is 745. Although he suffered some illness, he was most productive during the last five years of his life. An evolution can be discerned from his earliest works, dating from ...

(di Bernardino)

(b Recanati, Dec 18, 1536; d Loreto, Sept 9, 1593).

Italian sculptor and bronze-caster. Of noble birth, he showed a precocious drawing talent and at a young age was apprenticed to the sculptors Girolamo Lombardo and Aurelio Lombardo in Recanati. He became a favoured student of Girolamo, learning to work bronze, silver, gold and terracotta. In 1574 he settled in Loreto, where he remained until his death. The foundry he owned with his brothers was renowned for the quality of its bronze-casting. Most of his early works were executed under his teachers’ commissions, including a bronze baptismal font (destr.) for Penna Cathedral, Naples, and a fountain decoration (destr.) for the Doge’s Palace, Venice. The bronze statue of Gregory XIII for Ascoli Piceno (destr. 1798; drawing, Ascoli Piceno, Mus. Dioc.), which Calcagni completed after Aurelio’s death, established his reputation.

Calcagni’s first independent work, a stucco Virgin and Child, was executed in 1574 for the Cavaliere Agostino Filago. This led to similar commissions from the religious community, such as figures of ...

(di Salvatore Filangieri) [Jean de; Jehan de]

(b Naples, before 1450; d after 1499).

Italian medallist and diplomat. He was descended from the Candida branch of a noble Neapolitan family. His father carried the title of Baron of San Niccolò. Although Candida spent most of his life in the diplomatic service of various patrons, and followed his medallic activity only as an amateur, his contribution to this branch of art is significant. Some of his medals may have been intended to further his career by flattering their sitters. After working for the Anjou family in Naples, in 1472 Candida became secretary to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and, after Charles’s death, to Maximilian of Austria and Mary of Burgundy from 1477–80. In 1473 he travelled to Venice in a vain attempt to win the services of Bartolommeo Colleoni for his master. Subsequently various other diplomatic missions took him to Rome, Naples and Milan.

Candida’s medallic style shows considerable diversity. It evolves through various phases from Burgundian to Italian (betraying the influence of ...

[Foppa, Cristoforo]

(b Mondonico, nr Pavia, c. 1452; d between Dec 6, 1526 and April 1, 1527).

Italian goldsmith, coin- and gem-engraver, jeweller, medallist and dealer. Son of the goldsmith Gian Maffeo Foppa, from 1480 he served at the Milanese court with his father, eventually becoming personal goldsmith and jeweller to Ludovico Sforza (il Moro), Duke of Milan. In 1487 Caradosso was in Florence, where his appraisal of an antique cornelian was highly esteemed. He worked in Hungary in the service of King Matthias Corvinus, probably in August 1489; a later visit to the court was cut short by the King’s death (1490). Between 1492 and 1497 Caradosso travelled to various Italian towns to buy jewels and other precious objects for Ludovico il Moro. He visited Rome, Viterbo and Florence early in 1496, when the Medici family’s possessions were sold off after the expulsion of Piero de’ Medici (1471–1503) from Florence.

After the fall of Ludovico il Moro in 1500, Caradosso remained for some years in Lombardy. In ...

(b Verona or Parma, c. 1500–05; d ?Kraków, Aug 26, 1565).

Italian engraver, goldsmith and medallist, active also in Poland. He is first recorded in 1526 in the entourage of Marcantonio Raimondi in Rome. There the printer and publisher Baviera introduced him to Rosso Fiorentino, whose allegory Fury he engraved (b. 58). Caraglio continued to collaborate with Rosso and engraved several suites, such as the Labours of Hercules (b. 44–9), Pagan Divinities in Niches (b. 24–43) and Loves of the Gods (b.9–23; two after Rosso and eighteen after Perino del Vaga). After the Sack of Rome (1527), Caraglio took refuge in Venice, where he made engravings after Titian (b. 3, 64). His presence is recorded there until 1537.

By 1539 Caraglio was in Poland, probably at the recommendation of his friend Pietro Aretino, who had contacts in the court of Bona Sforza (1494–1557), wife of Sigismund I, King of Poland. By ...

Reproduction of a three-dimensional object produced by means of a mould.

While moulds can be fashioned directly, for example by carving wood or stone, both mould and cast are usually made in a pliable or amorphous material, such as plaster of Paris, wax or clay. The model is encased in the chosen material, so as to hold an impression of its shape and surface in negative: the mould is then carefully removed and the hollow interior filled to make the positive cast. A piece-mould, a mould constructed in numerous sections, is used to facilitate removal, the small sections sometimes held in place by an outer ‘case’ mould. The modern process of casting has been simplified by the use of synthetic rubbers that can be peeled away from undercut forms and reused. Other, less versatile, flexible materials for moulds include wax, gelatin and latex rubber (see Plastic, §1). Alternatively, a one-off cast can be made with a waste-mould. If the original form is modelled in soft clay, a plaster mould of few sections is easily removed, but if there are undercut forms the mould is ‘wasted’ or chipped away from the cast. ...

(b Milan, May 4, 1884; d Lierna, Aug 27, 1971).

Italian medallist. His father, Giacomo, worked for Stabilimento Stefano Johnson, the Milanese die-sinking and casting firm, and it was in this environment that Giannino was trained and in this foundry that many of his medals were cast. His first securely dated medal (Johnson, no. 41) was executed for the Esposizione Internazionale of Milan in 1906, and it remains one of his most attractive, well-composed and strongest works. His skill in rendering realistic surfaces and textures, in the handling of space and composition and in the clarity, style and spacing of his lettering may be seen especially in the scenes of ports on the reverses of the medals of Giovanni Stucky (1909; Johnson, no. 43) and Paolo Boselli (1913; Johnson, no. 48). The most impressive aspect of his work is his portraiture; he recorded with great accuracy and sensitivity the physical attributes of his subjects, as in the medals of ...