In response to yesterday’s inquiry of Kirk Nelson about a Cire Perdue piece at
the New Bedford Museum, both Marshall Ketchum and Bobby Rockwell provided
Kirk some thoughtful responses. One is that some Cire Perdue pieces were
merely practice pieces and never really finished and often given away by Mr.
Carder. The second is that this could have a genesis of pate de verre. I want to
share Bobby’s response and then Kirk’s response. To some of us, it is simply
over our head. To others it will be fascinating reading.
Bobby Rockwell here. I believe that the medallion that the New Bedford
Museum has was done with the pate de verre process. Carder developed his
technique as early as the late 20’s. This was his stepping stone to the Cire
Perdue process that Carder would be constantly experimenting with. Many
pieces appear to be unfinished because they actually are not finished. Carder
would try different ideas and then jump to another. Many were re-melted, but
there were many examples that weren’t. These would eventually find their way
into the market and be sold. This has led some collectors to question Carder’s
abilities not realizing that they were looking at an unfinished casting.
What makes me think that it is Pate de Verre is that there seems to be no
under curvage in the figure itself as seen in the arms and head, although I’m not
computer wise enough to reduce the picture to view the object as a whole. This
makes me think that it was done in an open simple mold rather than the
asphaltum/ wax type of molds of the more complicated three dimensional
castings that are of his Cire Perdue examples.

Dear Mr. Rockwell,
Regarding the Carder medallion, your comments force me to face the limitations
in my understanding of the pate de verre and cire perdue techniques. Tom
Dimitroff states in a footnote on p. 105 that the former is “an open mold casting
method in which powdered glass mixed with a binder is packed into a ceramic
mold and melted in a furnace.” Glass could not be removed from such a mold if
there were any “under curvage” in the form, as you suggest, so the absence of
under curvage in our medallion would support the thought that it might be pate
de verre. Yet some pate de verre, such as those featuring animal figures by A.
Walter, are sculpturally 3-dimensional, with plenty of “under curvage.” A
ceramic mold would have to be segmented to open around these pieces, which the
absence of polished mold-seams indicates was not the case. So perhaps, for
sculpturally 3-dimensional pate de verre forms, a 1-time, plaster-like mold was
used and simply “cleaned” away after the casting. How the mold cavity (into
which the glass paste would be packed) might have been formed in such a mold I
don’t know. Perhaps a cire perdue process was used just to make the mold. The
wax could be melted out in a separate step, perhaps, and then the glass paste
packed in following the standard pate de verre approach.
Edris Eckhardt, who consulted with Carder when learning her cire perdue
technique, employed the following process. She would model a figure in wax and
then, holding the model in a metal coffee can, she would pour plaster of Paris or
some related material all around it, completely covering the figure and almost
filling the can. She would then dig a small tunnel from the top surface of
the plaster down to the wax figure. Another coffee can having a small hole in the
center of its bottom would be placed over the first can so that the hole was
located directly above the tunnel leading to the wax model in the lower can. The
upper can was then filled with glass frit and the entire assemblage was
placed in a kiln. As the heat increased, the melting frit would flow down through
the hole in the upper can, through the tunnel dug in the plaster in the lower can,
and finally into the cavity left in the plaster by the long-since melted-away wax
figure.
After annealing, the assemblage was removed from the kiln, the top can broken
away and the glass figure dug out of the plaster in the lower can. The short
umbilical-like projection of glass formed in the tunnel (the sprue) was then cut
from the figure.
Our Carder piece features the distinct remains of a sprue, and I think this
might not have been visible to you due to the large size of the photo file I sent
with my first email (it sounds like just a detail of the image was filling your
screen). I have saved and attached the photo in a smaller size so that you can
see the entire image – including the sprue feature. Would the presence of a
sprue argue conclusively for a cire perdue rather than a pate de verre forming
process? Judging from the location of the sprue, the little medallion would have
been cast in a vertical position with the putti figure essentially
“standing on its head.”
There would seem to be no reason why the cire perdue technique could not be
used to create bas-relief forms with little or no under curvage (although, to be
sure, such use would not take advantage of the principal capability of the
technique). The “Veterans’ plaque” illustrated by Tom on p. 19 is described as
cire perdue and appears very similar in many respects (except size!) to our little
piece. It’s hard to tell from a photograph, of course, whether or not there is
any under curvage.
It would be great if you could examine our little piece in person. I hope to be in
Corning for the fall seminar and would love to bring the piece out to show you.
I very much appreciate your description of Carder’s apparently casual treatment
of these unfinished glass items. It’s fascinating to appreciate them as almost
“offhand” creations made in pursuit of technological knowledge. Your
characterization supports and enriches the story told by Eckhardt’s friend Dr.
Paul Nelson (no relation!), who accompanied her on her visit to see Carder,
presumably sometime in the early 1950s. Apparently the medallion was lying in a
jumble of items on Carder’s desk, or perhaps elsewhere in his office, and he
casually picked it up and gave it to her as an example of his work. How fortunate
for us all that he was not inclined to be jealous with his knowledge!
Thank you, again, for sharing your observations, and I look forward to continuing
this interesting inquiry.
Sincerely,
Kirk