Everything You Need To Know About

Reproduced Sculptures

As you already know, stone/marble and wood

sculptures are one of a kind and never reproduced. But

bronze, acrylic (Lucite) and certain mixed media sculptures

can be cast into an edition series. The reproductions are

created using a mold of the sculpture, (please reference lost

wax process) the mold is then filled, and each time it's used

you get a sculpture very much like the last. Most galleries

and museums, even in days gone by, consider an addition

of 12 bronzes to be an original. Meaning each one of

the 12 is an original piece.  Anything beyond this is

considered to be an edition within a reproduction series.

Today with the advent of affordable reproduction

techniques you will see sculpture editions range from 20-250

pieces in a series. You will also see a sculpture available in

two and maybe three different sizes. The practice of sizing

different sculptures comes from the custom of artists

creating a life size sculpture and selling along with it a

maquet. A maquet is basically a design or study for the

larger piece which then is sold for much less money,

because it's quite smaller. This long-standing and much

accepted practice has been taken to extremes in today's

market, to such an extreme where you will see editions run

in 4, 5 or 6 different sizes with each size having it's own set

of numbered editions.  The numbered editions for the

smaller sizes may run into the thousands.

You should have serious misgivings when you see

four or five different sized editions for a piece, I would say

the artist is definitely trying to make this sculpture a

commercial type product, but this is only a word of caution.

If you absolutely can't live without the sculpture get

the darn thing!