Comment on Thorvaldsen's Small Silver Head - A Ruined Tondo Portrait
[The author’s note in the text] In the great copyist ateliers of Imperial Rome it was the practice to work with full-scale plaster casts, which could, if desired, be sawn up and resurrected in new forms. As opposed to what had been the norm among earlier generations of sculptors, Thorvaldsen also worked with full-scale plaster casts, see D. Helsted ‘Thorvaldsens Arbeitsmethode’, Bertel Thorvaldsen, Untersuchungen zu seinem Werk und zur Kunst seiner Zeit. (Hrsg. G.Bott), Cologne 1977, p. 7-38. On eclectic Roman statues, see in particular P. Zanker, Klassizistische Statuen, Mainz 1974, p. 76ff.
Last updated 26.11.2015