An elegant and smooth bronze figure of a woman, made by Jennine Parker in 2002. The title of this artwork is ‘Embrace II’ and there are 295 known editions. This statue is marked ’10/29′ and mentions that there are 29 artist proofs and this is edition 10.

Craftmanship

Jennine Parker sees ideas in everything around her. She creates stylish and smooth figures with curves and shapes which renders these sculptures as stimulating to the touch as to the sight. Jennine stated: “My passion is the human form, and I like to do as much life drawing as possible (…)”.

Bronze

Bronze sculptures are often called simply a ‘bronze’, just because this metal is used most for sculptures. The choice for bronze arises from the desirable and advantageous assets of expanding a bit before it sets. In such this way, the finest details of a mould will be filled with bronze to create the best sculptures. Even more advantage is the property of shrinking when it cools, making it easier to separate from the detailed mould. A number of distinct casting processes are used for making bronzes. Lost-wax casting, sand casting and centrifugal casting are the most used casting methods.

Nowadays, bronze is still a precious metal and could easily be stolen to be melted down. During the first and second world war, a lot of sculptures were melted down to make weapons or ammunition. Luckily a generous number of sculptures were preserved in museums and in private collections. Possibly the first bronze ever made (and preserved) dates back from 2300-1750 BCE and it is held by the national museum in New Delhi.

Many different bronze alloys exist. The most common alloy for bronze is 88% copper and 12% tin. Classic and statuary bronze consists mostly of 90% copper and 10 % tin. The term bronze is tending to be regarded in museums and replaced in descriptions as ‘a copper alloy’, mostly seen for older objects.