According to artists’ biographer Giorgio Vasari, the Florentine sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio (1435 –1488) was the first in early modern times to reintroduce the ancient practice of taking moulds from nature. That this practice in fact predates Verrocchio is proven by a number of extant objects, such as the death mask of Filippo Brunelleschi (d. 1446) and the death mask of a lady with a veil moulded in the round from the fifteenth century. The so-called quattrocento was the century of casts after nature. It was common in Italy to make use of death masks and body casts in the artistic work of portrait busts, funerary statuary and monuments. In the nineteenth century this practice spread beyond Italy.
© SMB, Gipsformerei
3D-Digitisation, Virtual Exhibition, Post-Production: Studio Jester Blank
Comments