Wood bronze
Wood Bronze is a stucco -like, stronger and lighter material which could be thin-walled processed. It was used for chandeliers , candelabras , furniture and wall decorations in the early 19th century .
Wood bronze was intended as a replacement material for cast bronze, it only cost "the 8th part of the same".
The term wood bronze was also expressed in a different meaning by Schinkel. Not to be confused here with the bronzed wood mass by Carl August Mencke.
What is meant are the numerous so -called wood bronze chandeliers that Schinkel created for cheap sales. Their support rings and canopies were made of carved wood that were bronzed. The frames were silver-plated (silver leaf) and coated with yellow varnish to prevent the silver from oxidizing. This process gave the chandeliers a permanent brass look. This technique was and is also used to decorate mirror and picture frames.
Manufacturing
The mixture of ground sawdust (especially mahogany) and pottery clay, glue and resin as well as water was pressed into molds, air dried and then reworked on the lathe . It was more of a stucco-clay mixture, the wood content was low. Wood bronze or wood mass was an early substitute for industrialization. The material was inexpensive and could be used for various products.
history
The Berlin wood bronze factory of Carl August Mencke played a major role in the interior design creations of Karl Friedrich Schinkel .
Wood bronze was developed around 1810 by the former KPM employees Mencke and Schwitzky and manufactured in the factory they founded. In 1815 Friedrich Wilhelm III. a process patent that allowed the company to use wood bronze on its own for several years. In Vienna in 1812 the furniture company Danhauser was granted a similar patent.
The Mencke company can be understood as a workshop for the disabled , because it employed "crippled and weak people": in 1819 29 war invalids worked there, whom Mencke had "laboriously practiced" and "who found support, profit and employment in this activity".
Mainly interior design decorative elements, chandeliers and wall sconces, candelabras, picture and mirror frames, pedestals and jewelry vessels as well as workpieces for cabinet makers were produced. Mencke had supplied many of Schinkel's interior design projects with prefabricated decorative elements. The palaces of the Prussian princes August and Friedrich, but also the royal palaces in Potsdam and Berlin as well as the Berlin theater.
After 1825, Schinkel preferred materials such as zinc cast from Geiß or “stone cardboard” from Gropius.
Mencke produced chandeliers with gold-plated hoop crowns and glass hangings in the 1830s and 1840s. Here the candle nozzles are made of wood bronze.
Obtained objects
.JPG)
Mencke's wood bronzes are mainly used today in chandeliers and wall lights. The chandeliers are vessel-shaped objects with an antique bowl shape: the basic model designed by Schinkel was varied with spout holders, for example with sphinx busts, swans, elephant heads and dragons. These candlesticks are often framed in black and green like patinated bronze. In Schloss Tiefurt in Weimar many chandeliers have been preserved from 1822, also in Knoblauchhaus in Berlin. Another basic shape consists of a turned wooden bowl and attached iron candlestick arms, both of which are often decorated with glued-on wood-mass elements and metal applications.
Web links
swell
- ↑ Dr. Jan Mende: Beneficial beauty - a Victoria candelabra made of wood bronze
- ^ Karl Friedrich Schinkel: Architecture, painting, applied arts; Orangery d. Charlottenburg Palace, March 13 - September 13, 1981 / Administration d. State Locks and Gardens and National Gallery Berlin, State. Museums Preuss. Cultural possession. (Exhibition and catalog: Helmut Börsch-Supan; Lucius Grisebach. Scientific. Collaborator: Winfried Baer.) Nicolai, 1981 p. 311
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i lightandglass.eu: Jan Mende - wood bronze chandelier from the Berlin factory Carl August Mencke
- ↑ On Kunststiftung.de furniture back in Glienicke 2nd paragraph (here called reddish mass)