2020 Essays

Molding, Modeling, and Repairing: Lifecast Snakes Modeled in Black Wax

Noirot, Fabien

Ms. Fr. 640 contains several entries for producing casts through a process of molding and casting in successive molds. One of these is “Cast of wax to represent an animal that one has not got” (fols. 139v–140v). This entry presupposes that the practitioner has already lifecast a natural snake in a straight shape in a plaster mold. This plaster mold is poured with a special black wax which can be bent into the shape of an undulating snake. This black wax snake then forms the model for a “sand” mold (plaster and refractory materials), in which metal is cast. On the basis of this and other related entries, this essay recounts a reconstruction of the plaster molding and wax bending processes, and compares the resulting cast to an extant sixteenth-century cast bronze snake that is a combination of lifecasting and “repair,” or modeling.