MODERN WORKS IN BRONZE. The work of the bronze-caster was less actively pursued during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries, al though there was no time when important works were not in progress; bnt with the Nineteenth Century, the growing wealth of the communities and their desire to put up, as out-of-door memo rials, works which should be less perishable than the decaying marbles led to a remarkable revival of the art in a very remarkable manner, and to the starting of many important bronze-foundries. In the middle of the Nineteenth Century most important works were east in Munich, but ex cellent foundries now exist in of the great cities. In America there are two or three—one especially in New York, which does anything the sculptor can demand, if bronze is capable of it.
In the use of bronze for more minute and deli cate ornamental purposes, the example of the Japanese has been of infinite use. The same les son might have been learned of the Chinese; but the sudden throwing upon the market, about 1863, of a vast number of the precious collections hidd for years by the Japanese nobles ha, given to the Western world a singularly full first-hand knowledge of Japanese art. Statuettes of admi rable truthfulness and of great spirit and vigor are not hard to obtain, nor very expensive.
of known antiquity may command a price reaching to several hundred dollars; and in like manlier some of the greater vases, basins of fountains, and the like are costly for their mere size and the value of the material, added to the difficulty of transportation; but there is much to be had even by persons of moderate means. The
tendency in very recent times. and since Japan has become a manufacturer of commercial ob je•ts. has been toward much less beauty of form, but toward a singular taste and variety in the colors of the patinas artificially applied.
Consult : Fortnum. Descriptive Catalogue of the Bronzes of European Origin in the South Ken sington Museum (London, 1876) : Rein, The In dustries of Japan (New York, 18S9) ; Labarte, Histoire des arts industriels. Vol. I. ( Paris, 1866) , and des objcts d'art qui composcnt la collection Ocbruge-Dumenil (Paris, 1867) ; Mo linier, Les bronzes de la Renaissance les pla quettes (Paris, 1886) ; La Collection Spitzer (6 vols.. folio, Paris, 1890-92. Vol. IV.) : Teirich, Bront.cn arts dcr Zcit der italienischen Renais sance (Vienna, 1857 ) Wibel, Beitrdge zur Ken ntnis antiker Broncen (Hamburg. 1863) Ostasiatische Bronecgefiisse, etc., etc. (folio, Vi enna, 1883) ; Rosignol, Les m(jaux darts l'anti quift (Paris. 1863); Delom, Le ruivre ct lc bronze (Paris, 1877); Servant, Les bronzes d'art (Paris, 1880).