[§ 43, Polychrome Wax Effigies, ante, p. [149].]
Wax has been used from the time of the ancients as a modelling material, both in connection with casting in bronze, and with the making of small studies for reproduction in more permanent materials. The production of a plastic work in wax intended to remain as the finished expression of the artist’s idea is of course a different matter. Among the Greeks, Lysistratos, the brother of Lysippos, about the time of Alexander the Great, introduced the practice of taking plaster moulds from the life, and then making casts from them in wax. These he may have coloured, for the use of colour, at any rate on terra cotta, was at the time universal, and in this way have produced waxen effigies. (Hominis autem imaginem gypso e facie ipsa primus omnium expressit ceraque in eam formam gypsi infusa emendare instituit Lysistratus Sicyonius frater Lysippi. Plin. Hist. Nat., XXXV, 153). Busts in coloured wax of departed ancestors were kept by the Romans of position in the atria of their houses, and the funereal use of the wax effigy can be followed from classical times to those comparatively modern, for in Westminster Abbey can still be seen the waxen effigies of Queen Elizabeth, Charles II, and other sovereigns and nobles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These, like the modern wax-works of popular exhibitions, are hardly productions of art. What Vasari writes of is a highly refined and artistic kind of work, that was practised in Italy from the early part of the sixteenth century, and spread to France, Germany, and England in each of which countries there were well-known executants in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. The Connoisseur of March, 1904, contained an article on the chief of these.
Though modelled effigies in wax of a thoroughly artistic kind were executed of or near the size of life and in the round, as may be seen in the Italian waxen bust of a girl in the Musée Wicar at Lille, that has been ascribed to Raphael, yet as a rule the execution was in miniature and in relief. Specimens of this form of the work are to be seen in the British Museum, in the Wallace Collection, and at South Kensington.
In the Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London, III, 4, there is an article on the Gossets, a Huguenot family, some members of which practised the art in England from the early part of the eighteenth century, and a recipe for colouring the wax is there quoted which it may be interesting to compare with that given by Vasari. ‘To two ounces of flake white (the biacca of Vasari) add three of Venice turpentine, if it be in summer, and four in winter, with sufficient vermilion (cinabrio) to give it a pinkish tint. Grind these together on a stone with a muller; then put them into a pound of fine white wax, such as is used for making candles: this is molten ready in an earthen pipkin. Turn them round over the fire for some time. When thoroughly mixed the composition should be immediately removed and poured into dishes previously wetted to prevent the wax from sticking to them.’
This refers to the preparation of a self-coloured wax which may be prepared of a flesh tint, or of a creamy white, or of any other desired hue like those Vasari enumerates. The portraits in wax referred to in our museums are sometimes in self-coloured material of this kind, but at other times are coloured polychromatically in all their details. This is the technique referred to by Vasari in § 43 as having been introduced by certain ‘modern masters.’ In Opere, IV, 436 he refers to one Pastorino of Siena as having acquired great celebrity for wax portraits, and as having ‘invented a composition which is capable of reproducing the hair, beard and skin, in the most natural manner. It would take me too long’ he continues ‘to enumerate all the artists who model wax portraits, for now-a-days there is scarcely a jeweller who does not occupy himself with such work.’ This last remark is significant, for one feature of these polychrome medallions is the introduction of real stones, seed pearls, gold rings, and the like, in connection with the modelled wax, so that collectors used to style the works ‘Italian sixteenth century jewelled waxes.’ A portrait bust in the Salting collection, shown on loan at South Kensington, representing Elizabeth of France, wife of Philip II, is a good specimen of the technique. The lady wears a jewelled hair net set with real red and green stones, and a necklet of seed pearls. In her ear is a ring of thin gold wire. The flesh parts are naturally coloured, the hair is auburn, the bodice black, and there are two white feathers in the headdress. We should gather from Vasari’s words in § 43 that works of the kind were built up of waxes variously coloured in the mass, and a close examination of extant specimens clearly shows that this was the case. Local tints such as the red of the lips, etc., were added with pigment.
The best modern notice of wax modelling in these forms is that contained in Propert’s History of Miniature Art, Lond. 1887, chapter xii, but little is said there of the technique. It should be noticed that the medallion in coloured wax as a form of art has been revived with considerable success in our own time and country by the Misses Casella and others. The artists just named consider that it would be impossible to finish work on the usual small scale in coloured waxes alone, without touches of pigment added with the brush. It would be interesting in this connection to know what were the exact processes of painting in wax used by the ancients. Paintings, which must have been on a small scale because they were on a ground of ivory, were executed in coloured waxes laid on by the ‘cestrum’ (Pliny, Hist. Nat., XXXV, 147), which is usually described as a sort of spatula, something like one of the steel tools used by artists for finishing figures in plaster. However the substance was applied, the whole process was apparently carried out in the coloured waxes. There must have been some similarity between this technique and that of the wax medallions of Renaissance and modern times.
PROPORTIONATE ENLARGEMENT.
[§ 48, Transference of the full-sized Model to the Marble Block, ante, p. [151].]
‘To enlarge the figure proportionately in the marble.’ Vasari has said, ante, p. [150], that the model is to be the full size of the marble so that there would be no question of enlargement but only of accurately copying the form of the model in the new material. For this mechanical aids are invoked, the latest and most elaborate of which is the ‘pointing machine’ now in common use. The appliances in Vasari’s time were much simpler. Cellini, in his Trattato sopra la Scultura, describes the mechanical arrangements he made for enlarging a model to the size of a proposed colossal effigy, and the principle is the same whether there is to be enlargement or exact reproduction.
The model, and a block roughly trimmed by rule of thumb to the size and shape required, but of course somewhat larger than will ultimately be needed, are placed side by side on tables of exactly the same form and dimensions. About the model is set up a sort of framework simple or elaborate, according to the character of the piece, and a framework precisely similar in all respects is disposed about the block. A measurement is then taken from one or more points on the framework to a point on the model, and from a point or points similarly situated on the other framework, and in the same relative direction, a similar measurement is led towards the block. As this is ex hypothesi a little larger than the model, the full measurement cannot be taken until some of the superfluous marble has been removed by suitable tools. When this is done a point can be established on the block exactly corresponding to the point already fixed on the model. This process can be repeated as often as is necessary until all the important or salient points on the model have been successively established on the marble block, which will ultimately have approached so nearly to the exact similitude of the model, that the artist can finish it by the eye.