Renaissance Metalworking and Lifecasting with Rachel King | Curator's Corner S7 Ep8
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- čas přidán 13. 06. 2024
- During the 1500s, artists and makers were pushing themselves to create works that were as realistic to nature as possible. However, some of them may have pushed a bit too hard, particularly if you were to ask a lizard.
Join curator Rachel King, as she investigates techniques used to make this extraordinary bell.
#CuratorsCorner #renaissance #metalwork
Manufactured around 1550 in Nuremberg by German master craftsman, Wenzel Jamnitzer the bell is an excellent example of lifecasting.
Rachel investigates a manuscript written some time between 1579 and 1620 in which an enthusiastic maker and craftsman collated hand written recipes and instructions on how to make things.
The anonymous scribe filled 170 folios (or 340 single pages) with closely written text and some hand-drawn figures containing recipes, instructions, fragmentary notes, firsthand accounts of trials with many materials and techniques.
The resulting manuscript held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), catalogued as Ms. Fr. 640, brings a better understanding of how and why nature was investigated, used in art, and collected and appreciated in early modern Europe.
You can find out more about the manuscript and the research on it's content here: bit.ly/3EUsvu7
1:31 The Celini Bella
3:06 Lifecasting techniques
3:35 How do you cast foliage?
6:18 How do you cast a grasshopper?
7:47 How do you catch and cast a lizard?
Note at the bottom of page 5 of the manuscript : After the unpleasant experience that befell our late chief mold maker , it is suggested that when making a lion head mold , never attempt to put the lion in a vat of vinigar. It does not like it and will become quite cross .
😄
Hopefully no one tried the urine.
As a silver/gold smith and gem cutter this was very interesting. I've done a lot of silver and pewter casting and today much of it is done the same way as hundreds of years ago. Part of my love and passion of being a jeweler is knowing my trade goes back in time to the earliest of human history. Thanks for sharing this piece Rachel and good work on the video, you did very well! 🙂
The lizard casting could be done in one piece with the body placed upside down in an open top mold, since the bottom would need to be flat to solder it to the vessel. It would make removal of the bones as easy as dumping them out. This would preserve the fine detail seen in the feet as well, something very hard to maintain in a two-part mold.
How did they clear the bubbles without a vacuum pump?
@@drppenev To remove the bubbles from plaster of Paris often vibration is used. The vibration brings most of the bubbles to the surface where they then pop. When making very exact dental molds of peoples teeth vibration is commonly used to remove bubbles. Also when pouring plaster of Paris if it's done slowly and from a high pour that forms a very narrow stream that slowly fills up around your object many of the air bubbles are forced out by that narrow stream and the slow pour allows the plaster to slowly build up around the object without capturing air bubbles around the objects surface. I hope that makes sense to you. 👍
Thank you for that delightfully macabre and disturbing distraction today - I loved it! Especially the butter part haha (but those poor little creatures!)
I could just listen to her lovely accent all day long... It's like -- oh, the sound of a bell ringing?
Wonderful and engrossing, what a fantastic job you did at explaining the technique. The animations were also spot on. Thanks so much!
This was very interesting and delightfully made and presented. Thank you 🙂
This was soooo interesting. Great channel and I was shook how much I like these videos. Honestly. Great lady to listen to. Great content aswell ❤
Would love to see a new copy of this object. Maybe through recreating it in its original method or maybe a 3D printed version, would allow everyone see it whole once again. Great vid!
I agree - I'd love to see how this process is done
That's looks so great love to get hands on full 3D scan 👍😊
Toy crocodile 🐊 put a smile on my face
Great content yet again.
Fantastic presentation Rachel,I had no idea about the process.Thanks for your knowledge.
That Lizard with the cocktail! 😂
Now i want a cocktail. I'll go and mix one. 😎
Very enjoyable presentation.
Thank you for all that you to keep our history a live and relevant
Loved this! Thank you.
Absolutely fascinating! 😁
Poor lizard! Fascinating, though.
Excellent! Cheers!
That was fascinating. Thank you, Rachel
😆 great graphics! Beautifully done, again.
I like the orange pterygosomatide mites on the picture of the lizard.
In SoCal, we have Western Fence Lizards ("blue-bellies") everywhere; I've seen at least half a dozen today, without trying at all. You can usually walk up on them very slowly and smoothly while swaying like a tree in the breeze and snap them up bare handed. Works with alligator lizards, too.
I would suggest the bell, judging by the handle, was fitted on a shaft like church bell. ✌♥️🇬🇧
You got me with the the lion’s head 😂
If anybody is going to do this with regular plaster you probably need some graphite and diatomaceous earth. Those don't expand under heat. Gives a more stable mold. The bags of 90min dry joint compound are a bit better if you're trying to avoid investing in real investment. Really should use stonecast or equivalent for fine metals and detail though. Steel wire helps too for cracks.
Fascinating, thank you!
"the lion heads were the only parts for which no animals were harmed" - oh, poor little Satyrs!
😂
Interesting technique, well presented!
Thank you for caring for my bell please send it back to me...😂😻 what a beauty WOW thank you for sharing it... Trying to get you to send it to me was worth a try hehe😅
Thank you
...lucky for the grasshopper, Rachel!
Thank you for being You Fabulous ❤
We Grew up in the Mojave desert of California. There were four little girls who are used to love to catch lizards, but we let them go. Oh, dad, who was a wonderful sculptor also used to cast his sculptures into bronze. If he had tried, casting, lizards, live lizards his for a little girls would’ve brought him up on charges In the World Court. If not that, there would have been for very tragic faces, that my dad would never forget!
I'd be interested in a followup. Was the whole bell cast as one, requiring a really complex mould, or was this a simple-ish bell, with the additional bits cast separately and then adhered by some means? For example, mould lizard is standing on a vertical surface, but the lizards on the bell are on a curved surface,
Lions heads got me good 😂
Did the craftsperson sign the bell or was there another way used to determine their identity?
When she lifts the bell up to show the inside and clapper, you can see a signature along the lower edge.
I wonder where they hunted those satir heads to make the molds.
I started out watching CZcams updates on Ukraine and somehow ended up here watching how to catch lizards and use their bodies to cast silver replicas. Wouldn't have messed that in a million years!
I do love all the critters, but I’d like to hear, too, about the details that look a lot like jigsaw puzzle pieces.
I have a lizard and love brandy
I am a jeweler, I used to do lots of "life casting" I called it "organic casting" and I basically did it the way you describe, similar to the butter, I use parrafin wax to seal stuff, so with the rosemary I would give it a soak in the parrafin wax, I bet butter would do the same, it just helps the investment not get into the spongy woody parts. I have cast lots of bugs this way too, never a lizard yet, maybe a pet store would set me up with some!
Looking at this bell I doubt each thing was cast separately, it was probably a massive wax bell that had all the creatures and whatnot stuck on and cast in one go, the lizards where maybe made molds of which where then filled with wax, thus making multiple wax lizards to then cast, not multiple metal casts from the same mold.
Actually, miniature lions were hunted to extinction by craftsmen making casts out of them. Truly tragic
Funny joke))
🤣🤣
Grim, but fascinating
💙💚
8:40 Good to know our ancient ancestors suffered 'Lego' bites before they were a thing.
Nothing like waking up at 2am to go to the bathroom and stepping on a lego or a plug.
Now I wonder how they combined these single molds and pieces to make the bell! I feel like you left me hanging on a cliff of understanding.... How did they mirror the orientation of the lizard? What is the meaning of the bell? Someone was ringing it... why? How come a german bell ended up it england and someone french wrote a manuscript about how it was made? You mentioned Italy... Plz connect these dots a little better! Help me!
Lifecasting Live Lizards with Rachel King | Curator's Corner S7 Ep7 2125pm 20.10.22 hullo... it's probably a plague bell which they rang as they painted a large red cross or X on yer door.
"Not that it looks like a lizard that's been in the wars."
The world's busiest bell
Now I want to cast something.
(No, not any kind of metal worker, lol)
England have my bones
Perhaps “Deathcasting” might be a better term…
So just because the guy wasn't very good at carving silver, he murdered a bunch of lizards and grasshoppers? The middle ages were a truly ruthless time...
Platteresque...
.. very interesting.. for something really unique, go look at pictures of the p l a i n of jars, in the Golden Triangle, a well-known opium culture area. Most likely, these giant Stone jars are an ancient work of art, honoring the Opium poppy. The jars are poppy pod shaped, and are mysteriously scattered randomly, like p o p p i e s in a field... go look at pictures of Hill tribe opium harvest. It is Hill tribe ancestors who probably created the p l a i n of jars... it is not likely the jars are for burials... I have been studying these jars off and on for about 65 years.
Lifecasting Live Lizards with Rachel King | Curator's Corner S7 Ep7 20.10.22 2130pm interesting. i was reading that they created jars in the delineation of the goods which were placed in the jars to aid with storage - some wit remarked if opium is stored in opium pod shaped jars then the pods longevity is assured ie: they dont rot away. no idea how true that theory is.... no idea how that would work but i was then informed the jars are usually created in the shape of the items they store so it is easier for the drug store owner or apothecary proprietor to note which jars store which goods etc eg: opium poppy shaped jars store opium... obviously. or laudanum which was usually wine infused with opiates... old alcoholic beverages used to contain opiates for that ultimate high. the seers and the scalds of old, even the warrior class, used to get tanked up before entering the nether regions to entertain ideas of the other world or when preparing to enter the glorious realms of the gods should they die bravely in battle... all this is very much up for debate...that said, old pottery is far more alluring than desperately elaborate wares..
The volume of her videos are sub-par.
DEVUELVAN EL MOÁI 🗿🗿🗿
lions heads haha.
Very interesting! Horrible but interesting 🧐
Yeah … not drowning a lizard just to make a mold.
Killing animals to cast is not cool, why not just SCULPT THEM? I am a sculptor, you could make a reusable mold this way, then just adhere to whatever you wanted to.
Interesting but… was hoping live creatures weren’t cast, ruins all beauty of the object for me
This museum is just a show of how good of stealing they are
Get back the Moai, the hava and all the stolen things to Rapa Nui (Easter Island), you pompous thieves!🗿
Half an hour of drowning in uric/salic acid is...not a humane way to kill a lizard.
So its not with a live lizard like this shit title suggests. Its literally a dead lizard.
Is this real? If it is this woman is insane
I’m thinking the same thing! A half an hour in urine or vinegar?!?!
I think you missed the part where she's telling us about instructions that were written in the 1500s. She's not just making up these ideas herself.
Give back cultural articals stolen from others!
cool, when will you give back this stolen art piece to its legitimate owners though?
They...gave it to the Museum? ...and were literally English gentry??
Cry yourself to sleep about it Rosa
Shut up. Everyone is tired of hearing about leftie garbage.
Walpole bought it from a craftsman in Italy. He owned it and the family donated it. Didn't you watch the video. They even know the name of who made it. Are you going to send back everything manufactured in an other country when your parents die?
@@lenabreijer1311 Yep, that's exactly my plan. Xi Jinping is going to get a big cardboard box of kitchenware delivered at his house.
The British museum should return all the artifacts they stole. The kids of so many countries can't see the artifacts of their ancestors because you guys stole it
They can go on line to see them
@@Herr_Vorragender I'm not talking about the few artifacts they got legit. I'm talking about all the stolen artifacts they have
@@lenabreijer1311 not if they don't have internet. Plus the British museum stolen. So it seems like it's the British children who should go look at them online or in books. And give all the artifacts back to all the countries that the British government has looted them from
Your comment seems irrelevant to this video
Not relevant to this video.
Why it's taken to England from it's land. Looters filled their museum . Shameless colonists can't make themselves
you're so ignorant