Venus and Cupid

Lost-wax casting was an expensive and highly skilled process. It usually required collaboration between a sculptor and a foundry. Despite the careful finishing of the work, the bronze often retains traces of the casting process. The underside of this statuette reveals many features of the casting process. You can see the end of a sawn-off sprue, as well as ‘flashes’ of bronze which have seeped through the mould when the molten metal was poured in.