Images: Bronze Casting

Sculptors use hard beeswax mixed with a small amount of dammar (resin) from the shal tree.

Photo by Neil Greentree.

The wax is carefully molded into the separate parts—such as limbs —that comprise the sculpture and then lowered into a basin of cold water, where it hardens instantly.

Photo: Neil Greentree.

The individual pieces are returned to a malleable state by reheating the junctures so they can be fused together. Narrow tubes (struts) connect the sculpture's hands to the body, providing both stability to the wax model and channels through which molten bronze will be poured. While the wax is still soft, details, down to the individual beads of a sculpted necklace, are added with a sharp wooden chisel.

Photo: Neil Greentree.

The fully assembled wax model is then encased within several layers of clay.

Photo: Neil Greentree.

The wax mold encased in several layers of clay.

Photo: Neil Greentree.

The entire piece is held together with metal wire to withstand the heat of fire and molten metal.

Photo: Neil Greentree.

The heavily clay-encased mold is baked in a fire pit, melting the wax, which runs out through the channels leaving a perfectly detailed, hollow clay mold.

Photo: Neil Greentree.

Specialized metalworkers now take over, heating copper with a small proportion of lead and tin (and in earlier times, small amounts of gold and silver). This alloy is carefully poured into the clay mold, which has been heated to the temperature of the molten metal.

Photo: Neil Greentree.

After cooling for several days, the clay mold is broken to reveal a rough version of the sculpture.

Photo: Neil Greentree.

The sculptors carefully chip away the clay (and remove the struts) and then smooth and polish the bronze, a process that can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks.

Photo: Neil Greentree.

During the Chola dynasty, only the barest minimum of finishing work, such as removing the channels of bronze connecting hand to torso, would have remained at this stage. Today, however, artists conduct an extensive amount of cold chiseling that gives the details a distinct, sharp finish.

Photo: Neil Greentree

The face, the last part of the body to be polished, is left for the master craftsman.

Photo: Neil Greentree.