Category: metal work

Smith and Wesson Revolver

Tiffany and Company, Ornate Smith and Wesson New Model No. 3 Revolver, late 19th century

In 1885, the Smith & Wesson Company expanded their production program with the New Model No, 3, which introduced a variation of this revolver with a long cylinder capable of firing a .44 Winchester cartridge. Previously Colt had produced a revolver of this caliber which could be paired with the Winchester Lever Action Rifle. Smith & Wesson liked this idea; their factory eventually produced 2072 revolvers of this style.  

The sales of this revolver, however, did not meet expectations. In March of 1895, when the factory still had over half of the production unsold, Smith & Wesson transformed this model from the .44 caliber Winchester to the .44 caliber Smith & Wesson Russian. Retooling of the firearm was accomplished with a replacement cylinder. By 1896, forty percent of the inventory was retooled and sold to Takata & Company in Japan. In this way, the total number of New Model No. 3 was reduced to circa 1286 pieces.The company offered this model until 1908 when the revolver was replaced with the new Smith & Wesson Hand Ejector .44.

The Tiffany-crafted New Model No. 3 shown above is currently on display in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Oluf Gravesen

Sculptures by Oluf Gravesen

Oluf Gravesen was a Danish visual artist, both in printmaking and in sculpture. In 1961 the 18-year-old Gravesen became the youngest person to be admitted to the Danish Royal Academy’s Spring Exhibition at Charlottenborg, exhibiting three small scrap metal reliefs.

A successful solo exhibition at Den Permanente in the mid-60s brought his work to the attention of Copenhagen’s stylists and led to its inclusion in room settings for their promotions. Later he worked on his artworks, all made entirely of nails, in Paris, London and New York.

Gravesen’s exile meant he was not widely known in Denmark, so when he returned home from New York in the mid-1980s with a deadly disease, his tragically premature death was marked only by his family and closest friends and came, in the words of Pittsburgh’s Concept Art Gallery, “before he could see the influence his work would have on the late 20th and early 21st century New York art scene”.

Francisque Joseph Duret

Francisque Joseph Duret, “Chactas Meditating on Atala’s Tomb”, Cast Bronze, 1836, 135 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, France

The Romantic sculptor Francisque Duret, born in 1804, presented the model of his “Chactas Meditating on the Grave of Atala” at the Paris Salon of 1836. Several reduced-size bronzes of the sculpture were cast by the Delafontaine foundry after 1848. Duret based this work on Atala, the famous novel published in 1801 by François-René de Chateaubriand, and on Girodet’s iconic painting “The Entombment of Atala”, painted in 1808 and now on exhibit at the Louvre.

This sentimental and edifying tale tells the story of Chactas, an Indian of the Natchez tribe in Louisiana, returning to the grave of his sweetheart, Atala. The Indian girl, recently converted to Christianity, chose to poison herself, despite her love, rather than break her vow of chastity. Seated on an ivy-covered rock, a symbol of remembrance and fidelity, this athlete in mourning represents the so-called “savage” on the path to redemption, for Chactas will be converted in his turn. This moralizing story, according to Emmanuelle Héran, should be understood in the historical context of  the July Monarchy, which viewed religion as a force for order and social stability

Only the exotic accessories identify this “Hercules of the wilderness:”:  the plaited hair, the earring and necklace… Although the nudity suggests “primitive” man, there is undoubtedly a suggestion of the classical era, for there existed few depictions of the American Indian at that time: Chactas became a pioneering image of the Indian in the Western imagination. The new collective psyche that emerged from the turmoil of the Revolution praised sensitivity and depicted man confronting the mystery of his fate, turning away from the heroes of classical antiquity.

The Apoxyomenos from Croatia

The Apoxyomenos from Croatia

Apoxyomenos (the “Scraper”) is one of the conventional subjects of ancient Greek votive sculpture. It represents an athlete caught in the familiar act of scraping sweat and dust from his body with  a strigil, the small curved instrument used in Roman baths.

This substantially complete bronze Apoxyomenos, who strigilates his left hand held close to his thigh, was discovered by René Wouten. He found this bronze statue fully covered in sponges and sea life. No parts of the statue were missing, though its head was disconnected from the body. The bronze figure was recovered in 1996 from the northern Adriatic Sea between the Vele Orjule and Kozjaki inlets, near the Croatian city of Lošinj.

At 192 cm in height, this Apoxyomenos is currently thought to be a Hellenistic copy of sculptor Lysippos’ Apoxyomenos from the second or first century BCE. It is currently conserved, as the Croatian Apoxyomenos, in Zagreb’s Mimara Museum. The Apoxyomenos is similar to an Ephesus bronze votive figure in several ways: the almost portrait-like individuality of the face and a non-Classical form with a broad, fleshy jaw, short chin and hair made rough and unruly by sweat and dust.

Thomas Shields Clark

Thomas Shields Clark, “The Cider Press”, Bronze, Golden Gate Park

Thomas Shields Clark graduated from Princeton University in 1882. He was a pupil of the Art Students League, New York, and of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Later he entered the atelier of Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret, and, becoming interested in sculpture, he worked for a while under Henri Chapu. As a sculptor, he received a medal of honor in Madrid for his Cider Press.

This 1892 Bronze sculpture was originally exhibited at the Midwinter International Exposition in 1894. The Apple Cider Bronze bears some resemblance to Douglas Tilden’s Mechanics Monument located on Market street in that it bears tribute to the value of hard work. However, this purchase and contribution by DeYoung was apparently inspired by art rather than memorial, since the only cider industry of note in the San Francisco Bay Area is Martinelli’s (1868) located in Watsonville, down the peninsula.

This statue was originally a drinking fountain with a cup attached by a chain, and some say it ran with cider instead of water.

The Carpeaux Fountain

The Carpeaux Fountain at Jardin Marco Polo, South of the Jardin du Luxembourg in the 6th Arrondissement of Paris

The central axis of the Luxemburg Garden is extended, beyond its wrought iron grill and gates opening to rue Auguste Comte, by the central esplanade of the rue de l’Observatoire, officially the Jardin Marco Polo, where sculptures of the four Times of Day alternate with columns and culminate at the southern end with the 1874 “Fountain of the Observatory”, also known as the “Fontaine des Quatre-Parties-du-Monde” or the “Carpeaux Fountain”, for its sculptures by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. It was installed as part of the development of the avenue de l’Observatoire by Gabriel Davioud in 1867.

The bronze fountain represents the work of four sculptors: Louis Vuillemot carved the garlands and festoons around the pedestal, Pierre Legrain carved the armillary with interior globe and zodiac band; the animalier Emmanuel Fremiet designed the eight horses, marine turtles and spouting fish. Most importantly Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux sculpted the four nude women supporting the globe, representing the Four Continents of classical iconography.

Igor Mitoraj

Igor Mitoraj, Bronze Doors at Saint Maria Degli Angeli, Rome, Italy

The Basilica of St. Mary of the Angels and the Martyrs ( Santa Maria Degli Angeli e dei Martiri) is a titular basilica church in Rome, Italy built inside the frigidarium of the Baths of Diocletian in the Piazza della Repubblica.

Igor Mitoraj was a Polish artist born in Oederan, Germany. Having previously worked with terracotta and bronze, a trip to Carrara, Italy, in 1979 turned him to using marble as his primary medium and in 1983 he set up a studio in Pietrasanta. In 2006, he created the new bronze doors and a statue of John the Baptist for the basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome.

The right hand bronze door depicts the Resurrection, and the left hand door the Annunciation. Most of the surfaces of both doors are blank, showing textured and patinated metal, but out of the surfaces emerge dismembered figures and heads as if they were floating in water. The three figures of Christ, Our Lady and the Archangel Gabriel have arms amputated, and this detail is an allusion to the damaged Classical statues that used to be displayed in the adjacent museum. The figure of Christ is further divided into four by two slashes in the form of a cross.

Thanks to http://deaprojekt.tumblr.com for the reblog of the top image.

Maggi Hambling

Maggi Hambling, “ A Conversation with the Sea”, Steel, Aldeburgh, England

The sculture is made from stainless steel and is a celebration of the composer Benjamin Britten who lived in the area. The words stencilled onto the tip of one of the scallop shells read “I hear those voices that will not be drowned” and are taken from Britten’s opera “Peter Grimes”. The twelve foot high sculpture is made of 10mm-thick stainless steel, with five tons of shingle between it and its foundation, which is also of steel. It will withstand gales of 100 miles an hour.

The scallop-shaped sculpture was built thanks to the enthusiastic support and fund-raising efforts of Simon Loftus, an influential figure in the Aldeburgh music festival and the chairman of Adnams, the famous brewery in Southwold, up the coast from Aldeburgh.

Lion Aquamanile

Aquamanile in the Form of a Lion, Copper Alloy, Made in Nuremberg, 1400, Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

This proud and alert lion was created using the lostwax (cire perdue) method. Wax is molded around a rough clay model into the desired form of the sculpture, coated in turn with a mixture of brick, clay, and ashes, then melted out to create space for the molten metal. The rear edges of all four legs have been notched and engraved to suggest fur, while the long mane covering the entire chest has been rendered in low relief and incised to achieve surface detail. Small dragons form the spigot and handle.