![]() ![]() The National Gallery of Ireland’s casts came mostly from the British Museum, which was itself supplied by an Italian entrepreneur called Domenico Brucciani who had set up a cast showroom in Covent Garden in 1837. There were also many commercial establishments who produced them, like Martinelli of Athens and Malpieri of Rome. Many museums and galleries had in-house cast workshops, including the Louvre, the National Museum of Naples and the Gipsformerei, Berlin, the oldest existing cast museum in the world. Use the swipe-over tool on the photographs to reveal the following plaster casts: If we look at photographs of the sculpture hall from the 1890s below, both from the Lawrence Collection, National Photographic Archive, we can identify some key works. In 1875, our second director Henry Doyle had some concerns about the immodesty of the statues, so the cast caretaker was paid an extra twelve shillings to rectify the situation – in the Gallery’s records from the time, the payment is noted as being for ‘making leaves for statues’! Identifying some of the plaster casts in the Gallery ![]() The Gallery’s first director George Mulvany believed that they represented some of the greatest achievements of Western Civilisation and that the Irish public should be shown the glories of the ancients from which they could learn and to which they could aspire. Plaster casts were commonplace in museums of the 19th century as educational tools. When the Gallery first opened in 1864, plaster casts were exhibited in a Sculpture Room just inside the entrance (now the Shaw Room). ![]() Plaster casts at the National Gallery of Ireland Art academies made use of plaster casts of the ancient statues of Greece and Rome to teach their students. What were plaster casts used for?ĭuring the Renaissance period, there was a resurgence of interest in antiquities. This mould is then removed and fresh plaster is poured into it, creating a copy in plaster of the original. In an illustrated book by Francesco Carradori published in 1802, the author shows the step-by-step technique used to create these copies plaster is applied to the original sculpture to create a mould or cast of the original. What is a plaster cast?Ī plaster cast is a reproduction of an original sculptural artwork. Although they're no longer on display, they were a very important feature of the Gallery when it first opened in 1864, as you'll find out. To mark International Sculpture Day, we're taking a look at the Gallery's collection of plaster casts. ![]()
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