Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1893 — Critical Moments. [ARTICLE]

Critical Moments.

The historyof the casting of statues Is one long story of patience. When ; Benvenuto Cellini cast his great U erseus, according to rules which his

own genius had laid down, overwork and exposure had so undermined his strength that, at the critical moment, he was obliged to take to his bed, and leave the rest of the process to some faithful workmen who understood his plans. Finally, however, one of them came rushiog into his sick-room, where he lay dazed and groaning with pain, and told him, with many lamentations, that the process was a failure, and that the metal was caked. Cellini sprang from his bed, ran across the street, and rapidly dragged a load of dry oak wood back to his furnace. He made a roaring Are, and finding that the base alloy ip his metal had been burned out, he threw in all the pewter vessels of the household. Then the metal bubbled, the great Perseus was cast, and the maker and his faithful friends exulted. Stiglmayer, a German goldsmith in the first part of this century, having an ambition to attempt larger works than any he had accomplished, went to Naples in order to see the casting of Canova’s statue of Charles 111., but was denied the sight of certain secret technical processes. Stiglmayer found them out for himself, nevertheless, and as soon as lie went home made his first experiment on a statuette of Venus. Many delays occurred, and the excitement increased as the end drew near. By some mistake one of his assistants poured his molten metal into the air-hole. Then the casting came to a stand-still. “The crowd of lookers-on,” writes the poor founder in his diary, “stood first dumb about me, and then slipped out, one by one, and left me with my pain.” In a month a second casting was begun, and failed. With unbroken, courage he began the third cast, and on Christmas eve the metal was again poured in. It ran into the mold, and spurted joyfully out at the air-hole. “Our joy knew no bounds,” he declares. “We raised a loud cry of joy, and embraced and kissed each other. Pasquale, the helper, kissed the head of Phidias coming out of the broken form, and burned his mouth, for it had not time to cool.”—Youth’s Companion.