WAX-MODELLING. 



WAX-MODELLING. 



788 



Wax is used to a considerable extent in the making of candles, 

 cei-ates, ointments, and plasters. The so-called lealtny-wax has no wax 

 in its composition. [SEALING-WAX.] Spurious wax is sometimes 

 made and sold for cheap purposes ; consisting of yellow resin, mutton 

 suet, and palm oil, or turmeric instead of palm oil. Etchiny-wax is 

 made of bees'-wax and linseed oil ; or white wax, gum benzoin, and 

 linseed oil ; or white wax, Burgundy pitch, and powdered asphaltum. 

 Modelling-wax is described under WiX-MoDELLTNO. 



Vegetable Wax. Various plants yield a substance like wax, which is 

 obtained, like the vegetable butter, by bruising and boiling them in 

 water, when the wax, melting, floats to the surface, and there concretes 

 on cooling. Of these the most remarkable instance is the Ceroxylon 



which probably would be similar in its properties to the mixture de- 

 scribed by Vasari. ' When the wax is melted, great care must be taken 

 that it does not boil, or it caunot be repaired when cold. M. Fiquet, in 

 his ' Art du Mouleur en Pldtre,' gives the following compound for 

 founder's wax to four of wax, mix one of tallow and two of Burgundy 

 pitch (poix de Bowrgogne), which when melted together are fluid and 

 manageable. This was probably the composition used by J. B. Keller 

 and Girardon in preparing the mould for Girardon's equestrian statue 

 of Louis XIV., which was cast entire, or in whole getto. Several other 

 mixtures were and are probably employed by different sculptors ; the 

 above, however, were those employed in France and Italy in the great 

 ages of founding, when the wax method was generally in use. We 



may now proceed to describe the methods of its application. 



Andrea Verrocchio, a celebrated sculptor of the 15th century, is said 



andicola, the Wax Palm (Palma de Cera of the American Spaniards). 



Myrifa Gale, Candleberry Myrtle, or Sweet Gale, a native of this f ,_ jt 



country, yields a substance resembling bees'-wax when its catkins or by Vasari to have been one of the first among the moderns to introduce 

 cones are boiled in water. Myrica cerifera, a native of North America, j casting from moulds taken from life, or, in Vasari's words, to bring the 

 yields a similar substance when its berries are thus boiled : candles are practice into general use " che f u de' primi che con iinci.-is.so a metterlo 

 made of it also, whence the plant is commonly called Tallow-shrub or in uso " (ed. 1568). These casts he made in wax and in plaster; and 

 Candleberry-tree. M. querdfolia, a native of the Cape of Good Hope, some writers have spoken of him as the inventor of moulding from the 

 is another species which yields a vegetable wax. It grows along the | human figure, and others even as the inventor of casting in plaster ; 

 coast, on dry sandy plains exposed to the sea-air, where hardly any j neither of which is said nor could have been intended to be conveyed 

 other plants will vegetate. The wax invests the berries in the form of ; by Vasari. Many arts have been known, and occasionally practised, 

 a rough crust, which is separated by means of boiling water. It is of a before they have been applied to the ordinary uses to which they were 

 greenish colour, but may be bleached. When made into candles it well adapted. There is in Florence still preserved in the cathedral a 



cast thus formed from the head of Bruuelleschi, which, as Bottari has 



gives a very fine light. A vegetable wax is also obtained in China 

 from Liyuitrum tucidum, which is frequently mentioned as the wax- 

 tree in Dr. Abel's and other travels. 



Japan is now known to be the chief country whence vegetable wax 

 U imported. Small parcels have been brought to market for many 

 years past ; the wax being at first in the form of small thin oval cakes 

 stamped with Japanese characters. Afterwards it came over in cases 

 containing 130 Ibs. each. In 1859 a cargo arrived direct from Nagasaki, 

 in Japan, of nearly 9000 cases. It commanded a ready sale at the 

 price of the best Russian tallow at that time, (57. per cwt.), but went 

 off slowly at the required price of 70. 



Dr. M'Gowan, in a paper read before the Society of Arts in 1860, on 

 the productive industry of Japan, said : " One of the most remarkable 

 products is the vegetable wax, several cargoes of which have already 

 arrived in this country from Japan. It is said that the first adven- 

 turer in this article sold his cargo at 100 per cent, profit. The Japanese, 

 having discovered this wax to be a valuable article of commerce, 

 seemed, when I was in the country, to be making arrangements for 

 cultivating more largely the trees producing the berries from which 

 the wax is expressed; and, with improved machinery, this article 

 could, no doubt, be produced more abundantly and more cheaply. 

 The product requires protracted bleaching before it arrives at the 

 white state in which it is sent to our markets." 



Many other plants yield a substance similar to vegetable wax, some 

 from the stem, but mostly from the berries. The Rhvx tuccedanea, a 

 plant of the same species as the sumach, might (it has been suggested) 

 be profitably cultivated in Australia or at the Cape of Good Hope. It 

 yields a wax residue, in quality between bees'-wax and vegetable tallow, 

 softer and fatter than bees'-wax, and easily kneaded. It has already 

 come into use in England in the candle manufacture. If combined 

 with any cheap tallow or fat, it makes a mixture useful for many 

 purposes. 



WAX-MODELLING. Wax has been in all ages an important agent 

 in the art of statuary ; and in the formative art generally, whether as 

 a fine art, or for the purposes of science. In statuary it is used in 

 making the models for the metal cast, but more formerly than at 

 present, for now clay is frequently substituted in its place : it is, 

 however, still used by silversmiths in casting cups and other cylindrical 

 or spherical objects, especially such as are required to be kept free 

 from the markings of joints, to avoid injury to the design or embossed 

 work. In fine art it is used in forming images, and iconic portraits, 

 small busts, and bassi-rilievi ; and it is also very usefully and largely 

 applied in the preparation of anatomical models, especially hi patho- 

 logy, and in the preparation of fruit, flowers, and many objects of 

 natural history. Wax-modelling, when applied as above described, as 

 a fine art, is frequently termed the Ceroplattic art (<njpoAa<rn/d) ; from 

 Krjpiii, wax, and TrAuo-Ti/dJ, the art of fashioning into forms). 



Wax was formerly indispensable in metal-casting, though when and 

 how it was first used is wholly unknown. It may have been used for 

 the models of solid casts even in the earliest periods, but was almost 

 certainly used in hollow casting, which was a later invention, and which 

 will presently be described ; though of an art so entirely practical, no 

 description can convey more than a general idea. 



Different writers of different ages give various directions for the pre- 

 paration of the wax to be used. Vasari, who doubtless mentions that 

 used in his own time, recommends the admixture of a little tallow, 

 turpentine, and pitch, with the common yellow wax, but he does not 

 specify any particular quantities. The tallow renders it more soluble 

 and fluid, the turpentine more adhesive, and the pitch colours it, and 

 assists it in hardening after the operation is complete : it may also be 

 coloured with a little red ochre in powder, which must be mixed with 

 the wax in ita liquid state. It may be made any other colour in the 

 same way. A French mixture is to on: hun<lnv! pounds of yellow 

 wax, ten pounds of turpentine, ten of pitch, and ten of hogs'-lard, 



ARTS ASD SCI. DIV. VOL. VIII. 



remarked, must have been taken when Verrocchio was only fourteen 

 years of age. And with regard to casting in plaster, if metal casts were 

 made long before the time of Verrocchio, it is more than probable that 

 plaster casts were also made. The first distinguished Italian founder 

 of modern times was Andrea Pisano, who modelled the gates of the 

 Baptistery of St. John at Florence, which were cast by some Venetian 

 founders in 1330. The same sculptor had previously sent by Giotto a 

 present of a bronze crucifix to Pope Clement V. (1305-1314) at Avignon, 

 which must have been about 120 years before Verrochio was born. 

 This crucifix is represented as having been of excellent workmanship ; 

 it must have been fashioned consequently by an artist or artists well 

 acquainted both with mould-making and with casting, and the idea, 

 therefore, that either art can have been ever first practised at so late a 

 period as Verrocchio is quite untenable. The fact of bringing artists 

 from Venice to cast the gates of the Baptistery of St. John does 

 not so much show that Florence was without good metal-founders, 

 as that Venice had obtained celebrity for its artists of this class. 

 William Austen, a celebrated English founder, was anterior to Ver- 

 rocchio. [AUSTEN, WILLIAM,, in Bioo. Drv.] However, at whatever 

 period and by whatever process the early Italians first prepared then- 

 moulds for metal-casting, they most probably in all works of con- 

 sequence used wax in the preparation of the model for the casting. 

 The ancient Greeks and Koinans also most probably used wax for the 

 same purposes. There are few ancient bronzes of a large size now 

 extant; the principal of them is the equestrian statue of Marcus 

 Aurelius before the Capitol at Rome. This monument is hollow, and 

 was cast in two parts ; and probably the ancient method was not very 

 different from that described by Vasari ; some ancient works were cast 

 solid. The ancients were also in the habit of making plaster moulds 

 of objects ; in fact the Greeks and Romans were more or less familiar 

 with almost every method and contrivance known to the modern 

 statuary. (Miiller, 'Handbuch der Archiiologie der Kunst,' 305, 6.) 

 It is generally allowed that the triumph of casting in modern times 

 was Girardon's colossal statue of Louis XIV., cast by J. B. Keller; it 

 stood on the Place Vendome at Paris until 1792, when it was destroyed 

 by the French populace. The weight of the monument is said to have 

 been 60,000 Ibs., and its height, including the bronze pedestal, 21 feet. 

 This enormous mass of metal was cast at once, or in a single getto. 

 The preparation of the model and mould was on the following plan : 

 When the model of the statue was finished, a safe mould of plaster and 

 brickdust was made from it in many parts. [MODELLING.] Each of 

 these parts being marked and numbered, and removed from the model, 

 was then oiled, and carefully filled on the inner side to a certain thick- 

 ness, an inch or two, with the modelling- wax already described ; the 

 thickness depending upon the height or position of the part, the lowest 

 parts being the thickest, for the metal is destined to fill exactly the 

 space occupied by the wax. When all the parts of the mould were 

 thus prepared, the whole was again put together in a pit, around a 

 simple framework of iron bars, so as to support it firmly in each direc- 

 tion ; the lowest parts of the mould being first placed, and the joints 

 of the wax of the various contiguous parts being filled in, and the 

 pieces carefully united together with melted wax with a brush, as the 

 work proceeded. When the whole was put together, it was bound on 

 the exterior with strong bars of iron attached to the extremities of the 

 bars of the interior framework. The mould u now a hollow shell, 

 with a thick coating of wax all over the interior, the whole being kept 

 together by iron supports, inside and outside. The next step is to till 

 this hollow shell, through an aperture left at the top, with a com- 

 position of plaster and brickdust, which is fire-proof. This fire-proof 

 body is termed in English a core, by the French nfiyatt, by the Germans 

 kern, and by Vasari the unima. Air-vents must bo made in the shell 

 before the casting of the core. 



When the core is fixed, the original mould or shell is taken off, and 



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