Porcelain Prototypes: Attributing the Models of Ural Art Iron Casting

Abstract

This article considers one of the most relevant issues in the study of art casting from cast iron. Due to the fact that the administration and owners of the Kasli Iron Works responded in their strategies to the tastes of different consumers and also because they treated their production as part of their advertising campaign for the plant meant to demonstrate the capacities and quality of their main production, i.e. military and agricultural, there was no established plan for the product range. This is proved by the great variety of models different both stylistically and technically. With a few exceptions, the illustrated albums and pricelists of the Works provided information about the authors of the products. A systematic study of the authorship of Ural art casting production started in the 1980s but until today, there are considerable gaps in researchers’ knowledge about the authors of the models. The article considers sources of cast iron works, namely, models borrowed from porcelain production. Owing to its relatively low price and mass production, by the second half of the nineteenth century, the European and Russian markets of porcelain were full of allegoric statuettes and figurines focusing on everyday themes. Such porcelain works owned by the administration members of the Kyshtym mining district became models or prototypes for the cast iron products of the Kasli Iron Works. Porcelain prototypes continued to be used during the Soviet stage of the Works’ history. In those days, it did not only use existing models but collaborated with porcelain artists, such as E. A. Janson-Manizer, O.P. Tayezhnaya-Cheshuina, L.P. Azarova, etc.