Abandoned Asylums

[Rood]

http://thehistorybox.com/ny_city/nycity ... e00208.htm

[JChoate]

Speaking of Central Park equestrian statues,specifically Civil War related ones, here's a bummer for some craftsman to explain:

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/19/nyre ... -gold.html

[SDR]

Right -- the so-called lost wax process. It's impressive when you consider the size and complexity of many cast-bronze public monuments around the world, with their men, horses, winged figures, lances and flags . . .

And the cast bronze is apparently quite ductile. News footage of a standing figure in bronze being pulled down from its quite tall perch, last week, showed the stone cap of the obelisk-like plinth coming free, the bronze figure well-attached, the whole of this assemblage toppling head-first to the ground, whereupon the mass of the stone piece, acting like a dumbbell, twisted and bent the lower half of the statue almost in half without apparently tearing the material.

SDR

As to the New York sculpture, I noticed a possible clear coating in the photos, then read that this is polyurethane. Tsk tsk -- someone should have known better than to mess with a successful formula: gilding is never coated in that way.

I wonder of Saint-Gaudens intended his work to be gilded ? As for toning it down, all one has to do is wait . . .

S

[JChoate]

I believe Sherman was always gilded from the start.
Another gilded work by Saint Gaudens is his Diana (at the Met):
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/28.101/

Small-worldishly, in addition to ancient Chinese/Japanese bells hanging from the live oak branches, there is an array of interesting sculpture in the yard at Auldbrass. Among the sprites and other such things, there appears to be an identical gilded Diana. I've seen the Diana at the Met in New York, but this website attributes its presence to Philadelphia, which I think is a mistake.
(scroll about 2/3 of the way down)
http://femmeaufoyer2011.blogspot.com/20 ... ation.html

here's the excerpt:

[Rood]

I believe Sherman was always gilded from the start.
Another gilded work by Saint Gaudens is his Diana (at the Met):
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/28.101/

Small-worldishly, in addition to ancient Chinese/Japanese bells hanging from the live oak branches, there is an array of interesting sculpture in the yard at Auldbrass. Among the sprites and other such things, there appears to be an identical gilded Diana. I've seen the Diana at the Met in New York, but this website attributes its presence to Philadelphia, which I think is a mistake.
(scroll about 2/3 of the way down)
http://femmeaufoyer2011.blogspot.com/20 ... ation.html

For a fleeting moment I wondered if this might be the 'Young Diana' for which a very young 18 year old Bette Davis once posed:

http://www.mfa.org/collections/object/young-diana-41000

[Roderick Grant]

As a rule, I don't care for gilded statues. Sort of like lilies, isn't it? But there is a Daniel Chester French sculpture of a quadriga (with Edward Clark Potter sculpting the horses) situated at the base of the dome of the Minnesota State Capitol that looks quite good and appropriate against the white of the stone building. In this case, to save money, "The Progress of the State" was not cast in bronze, but consists of a steel frame with hammered copper sheets. The 1992 restoration, which replaced the corroded steel framework and restored the copper sheathing, cost $632,000, which in today's currency is $1,101.490! So much for saving money by doing it on the cheap.

[SDR]

Well, that deserves a visual reference, indeed. Now I know what a quadriga is. (Only an hour ago I finally nailed down "compunction," thanks to a crossword puzzle . . .)

http://www.mnopedia.org/thing/quadriga- ... state-1906

Mr French wasn't afraid of mixing symmetry and asymmetry, here . . .

S

[DavidC]

Hotel Henry at the Richardson Olmsted Campus by Deborah Berke Partners


David

[Roderick Grant]

The Hotel has undergone a handsome and sensitive remodeling in many ways, but the interior palette is antiseptic.