Works of Art

There are two casting techniques that were employed in the creation of Remington’s sculpture: the sand-casting and the lost-wax processes. At first the sculptures were produced by the Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company employing traditional sand-casting methods, which involved the careful preparation of molds made from a special type of very fine sand, a process that was elaborate and time consuming. In 1900, however, Remington became a staunch convert to lost-wax casting, an older process that was revived in America with the founding of the Roman Bronze Works in New York that same year. In lost-wax casting, a gelatin mold was taken from the plaster model to make a negative mold. Because it was more fluid, the gelatin was able to flow into deeper recesses and retain finer detail. After drying, it was coated on the inside with a layer of wax, then filled with a plaster core. When the gelatin mold was carefully removed, the result was a wax model of the final bronze, which could be adjusted by the artist before it was again encased in an outer mold. Firing the mold to harden it caused the wax to melt away, leaving space for the molten bronze to fill.

Interestingly, as the lost-wax versions of The Bronco Buster were produced, Roman Bronze Works preferred to continue casting the bases separately using the sand-cast method, since the base remained relatively smooth and without much detail. But in the course of the casting of the horse and rider, Remington reworked nearly every wax model taken from the original plaster. As a result, some of the lifetime casts may be linked by the presence of a certain detail, such as wooly chaps (as opposed to smooth leather ones) on the cowboy, or the direction the quirt is turned in his outstretched hand. As with the sand-cast versions, most of the lost-wax casts made in the artist’s lifetime bear unique numbers, usually on the underside of the bronze. Cast #40, reproduced here, is one of eight casts that were made with highly textured wooly chaps. The bronze also has an inscription indicating it was presented by the Italian Charity Institute of New York to the famed opera tenor Enrico Caruso in February 1905. The bronze was discovered in an antique shop in Florence, Italy, in the 1950s and purchased for $300.00.