2 9 4 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



August, 1 9 13 



eighteenth century, with the old custom, which Pliny men- No material is more responsive to the artist's touch than 



tions, of ancestral portraits in the households of the old wax, immortalizing as it does his individual handling in a 

 Romans as connecting links in the progress of the art. manner peculiarly its own. Perhaps no English wax port- 



Moreover, the Romans were wont to carry in 

 funeral processions waxen portraits of the departed, 

 a curious custom clinging to civilization as late as 

 the seventeenth century in England. Indeed, a vis- 

 itor to Westminster Abbey may see the old wax 

 form of Queen Elizabeth, 

 gorgeously attired, which was 

 carried in the cortege at her 

 burial. 



More cheerful, on the 

 other hand, are the marvelous 

 wax portraits in relief (some 

 white or monochrome, and 

 others colored), which were 

 modeled — painted would al- 

 most be nearer the word — by 

 the early Italians, of the 

 cinquo cento — Leone Leoni 

 already referred to, Antonio 

 Abondio in Italy, later by 

 Guillaume Dupre, Antoine 

 Benoit in France, and then 

 by Isaac Gosset, Eley George 

 Mountstephen, Joachim 

 Smith, S. Percy and Peter 

 Ruow in England. 



How the ancients prepared 

 their materials for working 

 in wax is not recorded, but 



raiturist has given evidence of greater ability than 

 did S. Percy, whose work as well as those of Peter 

 Ruow are eagerly sought for by collectors. Wax 

 portrait workers were not unknown in America 

 during Colonial times and later, and although wax 

 portraiture almost died out 

 during the nineteenth century, 

 our own has witnessed a re- 

 vival of this interesting art 

 not only abroad but in our 

 own country, as some of the 

 illustrations accompanying will 

 attest, being reproductions of 

 photographs of wax portraits 

 by Ethel Frances Mundy, of 

 Syracuse, New York. 



Good old Giorgio Vasari, 

 the gossipy chronicler of the 

 old masters to whom we owe 

 nearly all of our knowledge 

 of the lives of the early 

 Italian painters, wrote an in- 

 teresting treatise on the tech- 

 nique of art from which the 

 following is quoted as being 

 of further interest to the 

 collector of wax portraits who 

 seeks for all the information 

 he can find on the subject. 



probably they anticipated all A modern example of wax portraiture by Ethel Frances Mundy, an "In order to show how 

 of the processes employed by American artist wax is modeled let us first 



the mediaeval artist in such portraiture, powdering the speak of the working of wax and not of clay. To render 

 color, mixing in oil and adding it to pure wax in the state it softer a little animal fat and turpentine and black pitch 

 of fusion. ..... are put into the wax, and of these ingredients it is 



To Pastorino of Siena has been accredited the j0/£EtiH^ the fat that makes it more supple, the turpentine 

 honor of having invented the particular wax paste B j| adds tenacity, and the pitch gives it the black color 



used by himself and his successors in representing ^^ ^^^ and a consistency, so that after it has been worked 

 the hair and the skin. aEJjp^py and left to stand it will become hard. And he 



As in the instance of so |ff JD who would wish to make wax 



many of the other arts, that ^**23 ^^^^^^N».. ° f anotner color ma >' eas ' 1 ^ 



of "painting in wax" reached ^^Sm ■■*^BbS^^ ^1^. d ° S ° b} ' puttIng Int0 lt red 



Germany at an early date, JgL : ^9m^-. " •.^■^ earth or vermilion or red 



flourishing especially at Nur- jjg "•■% ! Ak lead; he w111 thus make lt of 



emberg in the sixteenth cen- JB'. • V ^^fiBx 3 >' ellowish red or some such 



tury and reaching its perfec- ft \ n~^| ^|&JL shade 5 if he add verdigris, 



tion under Caspar Hardy, J3 . BjF ^ " !>> 3HEm gree "' a " d S ° ° n wlth the 



the prependary of Cologne iE . ,"W ^ ^IBMl ' ° ther colors - But lt is wel1 



cathedral, work which excited M lHt\ t0 n °' tiCe that the COl ° rS 



Goethe's admiration, and ft ks^J^* ■ »> should be g round lnt0 the 



which, I have no doubt, led f W W || powder and sifted, and in this 



to his own experimenting in I fl ' ■ If '*8K Stat£ afterward mixed with 



the art, though I have not I W \ \W j Hf the ' WaX made ™ hqU ' !d 3S 



been able to find that he did W £. \ | _1J *3Sji po ff lble " 



Perhaps the most interest- ll| I ^Ti W "" y$W ^'^ f ° r Sma " • th " lgS ' "^ 



ing wax portraits by a French ^n^ Hr^ »" Sk Var^Sr ^ S ' P ortra ' ts ' minute scenes, 



artist— at least most interest- Vf^ IwT ' ■ tfiM JBt and othcr ob J ects of bas " 



ing from their ancientry— X^ Efe^ lll'.^ 'V^f relIef " And this is done by 



are those by Francois Clouet, ^W^l &"" ^ '^~ ' "' ' '?W mixing powdered white lead 



now numbered among the ^W^^ - 3^ ^'^ tHe wh ' te W ' 1X US CX " 



treasures in the Cluny Mu- ^^^ ,, ir plained above. Nor shall I 



seum in Paris. So important ^^^^fiL-^ *\j^^ conceal that modern artists 



a place did the art of wax „ , . /^^^^^7^\ , r- ^ j have discovered the method 



portraiture attain in France Modern portrait m colored wax by Ethel Frances M y of working in wax all sorts 

 under Louis XIV that we find Antoine Benoit given the of colors, so that in taking portraits from the life in half- 



highly enviable appointment of Unique sculpteur en are relief, they make the flesh tints, the hair, the clothes and 

 coloree to the French King during this period of culture, all so lifelike, that these figures lack nothing but speech." 



