words Alexa Wang
Bronze has been around since ancient times as an essential material to carve sculptors. Because of its durability, versatility, and aesthetic look of the metal with its antique outlook that can be passed on many years with its value remains intact.
Many art enthusiasts collect sculptors, but they can easily be deceived into buying fake sculptors. But how can you tell if a quality sculpture is bronze?
How can you tell between one that might become a prized possession for many years and one of lesser quality? Well, bronze has some qualities that make it easy to distinguish from other metals.
Accuracy of the casting:
Look for the intricate parts of the sculpture, for example, the tiny details. It is important to look around fingers for the details on the feet and any small sculpture parts, as these are the hardest parts to get right during casting.
Bronze is a relatively easy metal to cast as it expands before setting, which causes it to get the details of the sculpture right and can be easily removed from the mold without any breakage.
Composition of the metal:
Bronze is an alloy of copper and other metals like lead, tin, and iron. To ensure good quality of Bronze, the composition of copper ought to be 95%.
However, there are lower qualities of bronze that may contain only 50% copper with a composition of other metals, this type of bronze can be identified as it may cause the sculpture to rust and break over time.
The sculpture’s finish is called patina:
It is a glossy layer that gives the sculpture a shiny look. Good quality bronze sculptures have rich golden brown color and depth, whereas other sculptors have a thick layer of patina that has a dark color to them that may help to hide imperfections of the casting of the metal. Once the patina is removed, the poor metal casting and holes in the metal can be seen.
Weight:
Good quality metals are heavy, and especially when they are large sculptors, they may be even too heavy for you to carry on your own.
Thus it may be a way to check for fraudulent sculptors that may be light in weight. This can help in making a sound decision on whether to make such a big investment or not.
Malleability:
It is known that metals are not malleable. They are hard and heavy and cannot easily be bent or molded to make different shapes.
When checking for the authenticity of the bronze sculpture, it is important to squeeze the metal to check for flexibility in case of fraudulent sculptors.
Finally!
All of these tricks will help you make an informative decision when identifying quality bronze sculptors.
You are still required to be extremely careful as some people may even use iron as a substitute for bronze which may trick you in regards to the weight and malleability aspect.
Hence it is important to look for different bronze sculptors to compare to know more about the art that you’re interested in.
