Alumna Dr Rebecca Wade published in the Sculpture Journal
Alumna Dr Rebecca Wade has recently had two articles published in the current issue of the Sculpture Journal.
Published in November 2014, this special issue celebrates and contextualises the major AHRC-funded Displaying Victorian Sculpture project, which culminates in the exhibition Sculpture Victorious opening at Tate Britain in February 2015.
Rebecca completed her PhD at the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies and is now the Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds. One of the articles concerns her research on 'The production and display of Domenico Brucciani's plaster cast of Hubert Le Sueur's equestrian statue of Charles I'.
Rebecca said of her research:
‘In 1853 the Crystal Palace Company commissioned the formatore Domenico Brucciani to produce a plaster mould and cast of the equestrian statue of Charles I by Hubert Le Sueur, which had been cast in bronze in 1633 and installed at Charing Cross by 1675. The reproduction of the bronze statue and its later portland stone pedestal provided an intriguing public spectacle as a temporary wooden workshop was built around the sculpture at its location on a traffic island near Trafalgar Square.
‘Both The Illustrated London News and The Lady’s Newspaper published accounts of this process with textual descriptions and accompanying wood engravings of the scene inside the structure, making visible this material translation in progress. The two accounts attended above all to the materiality of the procedure, particularly the sheer weight of plaster and iron required to complete the task. My article contextualises Brucciani’s practice in the early 1850s through the manufacture and exhibition of this large and complex cast, including the ways in which it was received and interpreted in both the contemporary periodical press and contemporary guidebooks to the Crystal Palace.’
Rebecca’s second article in the special issue is an interview with art historian Ben Read called 'Encountering Victorian sculpture: recollections of objects, people and publications'.
The Sculpture Journal is edited by Peter Dent, Catherine Moriarty and Jon Wood, with new issues published in March, July and November. It is available in the Brotherton Library and online here.
Other articles in the Displaying Victorian Sculpture special issue include features on ivory sculpture, the veiled sculptures of Raffaelli Monti, architectural statues of Queen Victoria, John Gibson's Tinted Venus, Thomas Woolner's Captain Cook for Sydney, and the revival of interest in the Della Robbia family in Victorian Britain.
Sculpture Victorious: Art in an Age of Invention, 1837-1901 opens at Tate Britain on February 25 and runs until 25 May 2015. More details can be found here.
Image:
Anonymous, 'Taking a Plaster Cast of the Statue of Charles the First, at Charing Cross', Illustrated London News, 19 March 1853, wood engraving, 23 x 17.5cm. Collection of the author.