16Q Essay upon the Art of the Foundrr/ 



in the engravings of Zanetti*, are a necessary consequenoe 

 of the manner in which the antients proceeded to cast their 

 metals. AM the bronze statues from Herculaneum exhibit 

 similar repairs. Pliny saysf, that the first statues erected to 

 the conquerors in the Olynjpic games, were modelled upon 

 their own persons, and that these statues were called Iconic, 

 but they were cast solid. Afterwards the art was improved 

 upon, in order to produce the same effect with less metal, 

 and thev were cast hollow. Thus, by degrees, succeeded 

 the sure but slow and expensive method at present adopted. 



M. Boufferand:^ says, that the antients did not take the 

 trouble of making the first model of plaster, and then cast 

 the mould ; but that, after having made their model of the 

 full size with prepared potters' clay, they reduced it piece-meal 

 to a smaller size, and then dipped it into the melted bronze, 

 so that their model thus became a kind of nucleus§. 



Hitherto the observations of M. Boufferand have becR 



* Statue di Venczia, torn. i. pi. 45. 



f Lib. xxxiv. cap. 4. sect. 9, fi monbris enrnm similihtdine erpressa.':. 



A Genius, of Etruscan br'jnze, to he seen in the Florence cabinet, is wrought 

 so naturally, that sculptors and painters think, the mould must have beeu 

 made upon the body of a young niaa. Vide Goiu, Mit^. Flonni. pi. 45 ; et Mu - 

 seum Etrtisrinii, pi. 87. 



^ Vide Encyc. des Arts et Metiers. 



§ According to Philo Byzantius, Dc Seplem Orlis Miraailis, cap. v. p. 13, the 

 antients never made any large statue at a single jet, but thev melted the 

 parts separately, and joined them afterwards, according to the model they had 

 previously made. Simulacra arlijlces primum Jingurt, dcinde membra divisa co7i- 

 Jiaiit, tandem oniiiia lene corjiposila cciguul. But this assertion seems to be denied 

 by Pausanias, who, speaking of Rliaccus and Theodorus, says, ayaXfix-ra Sj« 

 Tmmi icrnrravra t^yxiraaiai y.afxTin intnTU, iiu^xivoyns : they knew how to 

 work entire statues like a dress wrought without a seam : a singular expres- 

 sion, but which has been mistaken by translators for statues cast at a single 

 jet. According to the same Philo, the famous Colossus of Rhodes was also 

 cast in parts, but in another way: — they began by casting the legs, then 

 placed them on the ground, melted the thighs above them, and proceeded 

 npwardsiu such a manner that tlie hot metal united itself with the cold. This 

 method of proceeding perhaps explains what Pausanias means by •^vfaivevri;. 

 The antients were afraid, that by melting large masses at a single cast, the flux 

 might cool in flowing along. Recent experiments have taught us, liowever, 

 that it will run forty feet before becoming fixed. It is therefore probable, that 

 if we had the same taste for Colossi that the antients had, we should be able to 

 cast them with still more perfection. 



just 



