Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-fwgfc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T04:32:22.189Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nature and Art, Making and Knowing: Reconstructing Sixteenth-Century Life-Casting Techniques*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Pamela H. Smith  and
Tonny Beentjes
Pamela H. Smith
Affiliation:
Columbia University [Smith]
Tonny Beentjes
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam [Beentjes]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Almost every Kunstkammer in sixteenth-century Europe contained small reptiles or plants cast from life in a variety of media. This widespread technique, which used small, recently killed animals as a pattern to create lifelike sculptures, was often prized more highly than works sculpted with the hand. An unstudied, late sixteenth-century French technical manuscript records a practitioner's experiments in casting from life, among many other subjects. This article investigates both the techniques and the significance of life-casting on the basis of this treatise, incorporating the examination of surviving sixteenth-century European life casts and the reconstruction of the manuscript's recipes and technical instructions, arguing that life-casting in the sixteenth century was viewed in part as a means to the knowledge of nature.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , Spring 2010 , pp. 128 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 Renaissance Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Research for this article was supported by a Samuel H. Kress Paired Fellowship, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

References

Achilles-Syndram, Katrin, ed. Die Kunstsammlung des Paulus Praun. Die Inventare von 1616 und 1719. Nuremberg, 1994.Google Scholar
Ackermann, Felix. “Plaketten im Amerbach-Kabinett.” In Sammeln in der Renaissance: Das Amerbach-Kabinett. Beiträge zu Basilius Amerbach (1991), 51–72.Google Scholar
Amico, Leonard M. Bernard Palissy: In Search of Earthly Paradise. Paris, 1996.Google Scholar
Babelon, Jean-Pierre. “Les Caravage de Philippe de Béthune.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, series G, 111 (1988): 33–38.Google Scholar
Bimbenet-Privat, Michèle. Les Orfèvres parisiens de la Renaissance (1506–1620). Paris, 1992.Google Scholar
Biringuccio, Vannoccio. Pirotechnia. 1540. Trans. , Smith, Cyril Stanley and , Gnudi, Martha Teach. Reprint, Cambridge, MA, 1966.Google Scholar
Bredekamp, Horst. The Lure of Antiquity and the Cult of the Machine. Princeton, 1995.Google Scholar
Cellini, Benvenuto. Traktate über die Goldschmiedekunst und die Bildhauerei (I Trattati dell' Oreficeria e della scultura di Benvenuto Cellini). Ed. , Brepohl, Erhard. Trans. , Fröhlich, Ruth and , Fröhlich, Max. Cologne, 2005.Google Scholar
Cennini, Cennino D'Andrea. Il libro dell'Arte (The Craftsman's Handbook). Trans. , Thompson, Daniel V. New York, 1960.Google Scholar
Cole, Michael W. “Cellini's Blood.” The Art Bulletin 81.2 (1999): 215–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cole, Michael W. Cellini and the Principles of Sculpture. Cambridge, 2002.Google Scholar
Cole, Michael W. “The Medici Mercury and the Breath of Bronze.” In Large Bronzes in the Renaissance, ed. , Motture, Peta, 129–53. New Haven, 2003.Google Scholar
Darmstaedter, Ernst. Berg-, Probir- und Kunstbüchlein. Munich, 1926.Google Scholar
Didi-Huberman, Georges. L'Empreinte. Paris, 1997.Google Scholar
Diemer, Dorothea. “Bronzeplastik um 1600 in München: Neue Quellen und Forschungen.” Jahrbuch des Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte 2 (1986): 107–77.Google Scholar
Diemer, Dorothea. “Handwerksgeheimnisse der Vischer-Werkstatt. Eine neue Quelle zur Entstehung des Sebaldusgrabes in Nürnberg.” Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, 3rd series, 47 (1996): 24–54.Google Scholar
Diemer, Dorothea. Hubert Gerhard und Carlo di Cesare del Palagio. Bronzeplastiker der Spätrenaissance. 2 vols. Berlin, 2004.Google Scholar
Dossie, Robert. The Handmaid to the Arts. London, 1758.Google Scholar
Eamon, William. Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture. Princeton, 1994.Google Scholar
Faries, Molly. “Reshaping the Field: The Contribution of Technical Studies.” In Early Netherlandish Painting at the Crossroads: A Critical Look at Current Methodologies, 70–105. Ed. , Ainsworth, Maryan W. New Haven, 2001.Google Scholar
Faries, Molly. Making and Marketing: Studies of the Painting Process in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Workshops. Turnhout, 2006.10.1484/M.MEF-EB.6.09070802050003050106000509CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fehrenbach, Frank. Licht und Wasser. Zur Dynamik naturphilosophischer Leitbilder im Werk Leonardo da Vincis. Tübingen, 1997.Google Scholar
Fehrenbach, Frank, ed. Leonardo da Vinci: Natur im Übergang. Beiträge zu Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik. Munich, 2002.Google Scholar
Fickler, Johann Baptist. Das Inventar der Münchner herzoglichen Kunstkammer von 1598. N.s., 125, Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse Abhandlungen. Ed. , Diemer, Peter. Munich, 2004.Google Scholar
Gauricus, Pomponius. De Sculptura. 1504. Ed. , Chastel, André and , Klein, Robert. Geneva, 1969.Google Scholar
Glaisyer, Natasha, and , Pennell, Sara, eds. Didactic Literature in England 1500–1800: Expertise Constructed. Aldershot, 2003.Google Scholar
Glinsman, Lisha Deming. “Renaissance Portrait Medals by Matteo de' Pasti: A Study of Their Casting Materials.” In Conservation Research 1996/97. Vol. 57, Studies in the History of Art, 93–107. Washington, DC, 1996–97.Google Scholar
Gramaccini, Norberto. “Das genaue Abbild der Natur — Riccios Tiere und die Theorie des Naturabgusses seit Cennini.” In Natur und Antike in der Renaissance, 198–225. Frankfurt, 1985.Google Scholar
Grosjean, Charles T. Diaries, working notebooks, and day book, ca. 1876–83. Brown University Library.Google Scholar
Harkness, Deborah E. The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution. New Haven, 2007.Google Scholar
Italian Medals. Ed. J. Graham Pollard. Studies in the History of Art 21. Washington, DC, 1987.Google Scholar
Jones, Mark. “Medal-Making in France 1400–1650: The Italian Dimension.” In Italian Medals (1987), 57–71.Google Scholar
Kahn, Didier. Alchimie et Paracelsisme en France (1567–1625). Paris, 2007.Google Scholar
Kavey, Alison. Books of Secrets: Natural Philosophy in England, 1550–1600. Urbana, 2007.Google Scholar
Klier, Andrea. Fixierte Natur: Naturabguss und Effigies im 16. Jahrhundert. Berlin, 2004.Google Scholar
Kris, Ernst. “Der Stil ‘Rustique’: Die Verwendung des Naturabgusses bei Wenzel Jamnitzer und Bernard Palissy.” Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, n.s., 1 (1928): 137–208.Google Scholar
Kris, Ernst. Le style rustique. Intr. , Gombrich, Ernst. Postface Patricia Falguières. Paris, 2005.Google Scholar
Landolt, Elisabeth. “Das Amerbach-Kabinett und seine Inventare.” In Sammeln in der Renaissance: Das Amerbach-Kabinett. Beiträge zu Basilius Amerbach (1991), 73–206.Google Scholar
Landolt, Elisabeth, and , Ackermann, Felix. Sammeln in der Renaissance: Das Amerbach-Kabinett. Die Objekte im Historischen Museum Basel. Basel, 1991.Google Scholar
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Protogaea. Ed. and trans. , Cohen, Claudine and , Wakefield, Andre. Chicago, 2008.10.7208/chicago/9780226112978.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lein, Edgar. Ars Aeraria: Die Kunst des Bronzegießens und die Bedeutung von Bronze in der florentinischen Renaissance. Mainz, 2004.Google Scholar
Lein, Edgar. “‘Wie man allerhand Insecta, als Spinnen, Fliegen, Käfer, Eydexen, Frösche und auch ander zart Laubwerck scharff abgiessen solle, als wann sie natürlich also gewachsen wären’ — Die Natur als Modell in Johann Kunckels Beschreibungen des Naturabgusses von Tieren und Pflanzen.” In Das Modell in der bildenden Kunst des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit — Festschrift für Herbert Beck, ed. , Bol, Peter C and , Richter, Heike, 103–19. Petersberg, 2006.Google Scholar
Lein, Edgar. “Über den Naturabguss von Pflanzen und Tieren.” In Goldglanz und Silberstrahl, ed. , Tebbe, Karin, 2:205–15. Nuremberg, 2007.Google Scholar
Leithe-Jasper, Manfred. Renaissance Master Bronzes from the Collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Washington, DC, 1986.Google Scholar
Leong, Elaine. “Recipe Collections and the Currency of Medical Knowledge in the Early Modern ‘Medical Marketplace.’” In The Medical Marketplace and Its Colonies, c. 1450–c. 1850, ed. , Jenner, M and , Wallis, P, 133–52. London, 2007.10.1057/9780230591462_7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leong, Elaine. “Making Medicines in the Early Modern Household.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 82 (2008): 145–68.10.1353/bhm.2008.0042CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Long, Pamela O. Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Baltimore, 2001.Google Scholar
Merrifield, Mary P. Medieval and Renaissance Treatises on the Arts of Painting. Mineola, 1967.Google Scholar
Montagu, Jennifer. Roman Baroque Sculpture: The Industry of Art. New Haven, 1989.Google Scholar
Neudörfer, Johann. Nachrichten von Künstlern und Werkleuten . . . aus dem Jahre 1547. Vol. 10, Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik des Mittelalters und der Renaissance. Ed. , Lochner, G. W. K. Vienna, 1875.Google Scholar
Piemontese, Alexis [pseud]. Les Secrets due Seigneur Alexis Piemontois, et d'Autres Auteurs bien experimentés et approves. Antwerp, 1563.Google Scholar
Piemontese, Alexis [pseud]. The secretes of the reverende Maister Alexis of Piemount: containing excellent remedies agaynste divers diseases, woundes, and other accidents, with the manner to make distillations, parfumes, confitures, dyings, colors, fusions, and meltings. Trans. , Warde, William. London, 1568.Google Scholar
Platt, Hugh. The Jewell House of Art and Nature: Containing divers rare and profitable Inventions, together with sundry new experimentes in the Art of Husbandry, Distillation, and Molding. London, 1594.Google Scholar
Plon, Eugene. Leone Leoni Sculpteur de Charles-Quint et Pompeo Leoni Sculpteur de Philippe II. Paris, 1887.Google Scholar
Quiccheberg, Samuel. Der Anfang der Museumslehre in Deutschland: Das Traktat “Inscriptiones vel Tituli Theatri Amplissimi” von Samuel Quiccheberg. Ed. , Roth, Harriet. Berlin, 2000.Google Scholar
Raff, Thomas. Die Sprache der Materialien: Anleitung zu einer Ikonologie der Werkstoffe. Munich, 1994.Google Scholar
Rankin, Alisha. “Becoming an Expert Practitioner: Court Experimentalism and the Medical Skills of Anna of Saxony (1532–1585).” Isis 98 (2007): 23–53.10.1086/512830CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rice, Silas. “Instructions for Jewelry Making, ca. 1802–25.” Microfilm 3019, Winterthur Museum, Gardens, and Library.Google Scholar
Rivius, Gualtherus H. (Walther Ryff). Der furnembsten notwendigsten der gantzen Architectur angehörigen Mathematischen und Mechanischen künst eygentlicher bericht und vast klare verstendliche unterrichtung zu rechtem verstandt der lehr Vitruvij. Nuremberg, 1547.Google Scholar
Rossi, Paolo L. “Benvenuto Cellini: Reputazione and Transmutation in France and Florence.” In Benvenuto Cellini: Kunst und Kunsttheorie im 16. Jahrhundert, ed. , Nova, Alessandro and , Schreurs, Anna, 301–14. Cologne, 2003.Google Scholar
Sammeln in der Renaissance: Das Amerbach-Kabinett. Beiträge zu Basilius Amerbach. Elisabeth Landolt, Hans-Rudolf Hagemann, Susanne von Hoerschelmann, and Felix Ackermann. Basel, 1991.Google Scholar
Scheicher, Elisabeth. Die Kunstkammer (Schloss Ambras). Innsbruck, 1977.Google Scholar
Schönherr, David von. “Wenzel Jamnitzers Arbeiten für Erzherzog Ferdinand.” In Mitteilungen des Instituts für Oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung, ed. , von Sickel, Ritter, Ritter von Zeissberg, H, and , Mühlbacher, E, 9:289–305. 1888. Reprint, Amsterdam, 1971.Google Scholar
Schürer, Ralf. “Vom alten Ruhm der Goldschmiedearbeit. Nürnberger Silber in Europa.” In Quasi Centrum Europae. Europa kauft in Nürnberg 1400–1800, ed. , Maué, Hermann, Eser, Thomas, Hauschke, Sven, and , Stolzenberger, Jana, 175–97. Nuremberg, 2002.Google Scholar
Smith, Cyril Stanley. A Search for Structure: Selected Essays on Science, Art, and History. Cambridge, MA, 1981.Google Scholar
Smith, G. The Laboratory: Or, School of Arts. London, 1770.Google Scholar
Smith, Pamela H. The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution. Chicago, 2004.10.7208/chicago/9780226764269.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Pamela H. “Science on the Move: Recent Trends in the History of Early Modern Science.” Renaissance Quarterly 62.2 (2009a): 345–75.10.1086/599864CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Pamela H. “Vermilion, Mercury, Blood, and Lizards: Matter and Meaning in Metalworking.” In Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe: Between Market and Laboratory, ed. , Klein, Ursula and , Spary, Emma, 29–49. Chicago, 2009b.Google Scholar
Stöckler, Ingrid. Die Entwicklung der Naturabgüsses von Padua bis Nürnberg: Eine nähere Betrachtung des silbernen Schreibzeugkästchen des Wenzel Jamnitzer. Zürich, 1990.Google Scholar
Stone, Richard. “Antico and the Development of Bronze Casting in Italy at the End of the Quattrocento.” Metropolitan Museum Journal 16 (1982): 87–116.10.2307/1512771CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, Richard. “A New Interpretation of the Casting of Donatello's Judith and Holofernes.” In Small Bronzes in the Renaissance, ed. , Pincus, Debra, 55–67. Studies in the History of Art 62. New Haven, 2001.Google Scholar
Tuttle, Patricia. “An Investigation of the Renaissance Casting Techniques of Incuse-Reverse and Double-Sided Medals.” In Italian Medals (1987), 205–12.Google Scholar
Vasari, Giorgio. Vasari on Technique. Ed. , Baldwin Brown, G. Trans. , Maclehose, Louisa S. London, 1907.Google Scholar
Weeks, Sophie. “The Role of Mechanics in Francis Bacon's Great Instauration.” In Philosophies of Technology, ed. , Zittel, Claus, 133–95. Leiden, 2008.Google Scholar
Woods, Kim, ed. Making Renaissance Art. New Haven, 2007.Google Scholar
Zimmermann, Heinrich. “Das Inventar der Prager Schatz- und Kunstkammer vom 6. Dezember 1621.” Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 25 (1905): 2:13–75.Google Scholar