• A new belly for the plinth of Hercules (videos)

    background, Latest projects, Restoration, video

    A sad history

    For centuries the sandstone statue of Hercules stood on its stone base in the Estate Schaffelaar Barneveld. Until sometime in the seventies a group of young people entered the Schaffelaar Wood and smashed it to pieces. In grief, the statue was then buried in the garden. Around the turn of the century, the picture was dug up again and restored somewhat. A new bronze Hercules had now been placed on the pedestal, created by Ton Mooy from Amersfoort. Then the plan arose with the current owner of the estate, the Foundation Geldersch Landscape and Castles, to safely place the old sculpture inside, and the new one on a new plinth outside. I was asked to take care of its removal and installation and to carve a new belly’ for the new plint of the bronze Hercules. In November 2016 we cut the old plinth free with the chainsaw and brought it to my workshop.

    A new belly

    new belly for plinth of Hercules Schaffelaar in Irish bluestone

    A new base already existed , and the new top plate was still attached to the bronze statue. The bronze statue was removed from its plinth four years ago for fear of bronze theft.

    I ordered a large block of Irish bluestone 72 x 82 x 87 cms wide, with a weight of more than 1300 kilos. I first carved the general shape of the plinth, after which I started on the ornaments.

    Video: Carving the ornaments

    I had forgotten to turn on the camera at the start of the carving work, so specifically for the video I carved the same ornament again on a scrificial piece. After the carving of the contours the real shaping is shown on the final block.

    Installing

    On the day of installing I again had the same truck and crane operator as during disassembling: the Ruitenbeek firm from Amersfoort. We collected the two statues from the storage area of the Gelder Landscape, drove to the park and installed the plinth of Hercules in three parts on the existing concrete slab in the park.

    When the new, bronze Hercules stood shimmering in full sunlight again, we drove to the mansion for the real challenge. We still had to transport the gruesomely heavy old plinth and the old statue across the marble floor to the stairwell , and there mount these to a final height of three meters. The staircase was too narrow for a gantry crane, and there was no place to hang a pulley. How was I supposed to get this done?

    new belly for pedestal of Hercules
    A new base of Hercules. Bronze sculpture by Ton Mooy. Sculptor Koen van Velzen made a new base.
    The bronze statue was made by Ton Mooy from Amersfoort. I was responsible for the placement and the carving of the new plinth

    Fortunately, I found out that my blue stone crane could just reach high enough if I modified it a little… Photos by Bram van der Meulen of the Barneveld newspaper.

    • new bottom part for Pedestal of Hercules Schaffelaar
    • new bottom part for Pedestal of Hercules Schaffelaar
    • new bottom part for Pedestal of Hercules Schaffelaar
    • new bottom part for Pedestal of Hercules Schaffelaar
    • old sandstone Hercules inside De Schaffelaar Castle, Barneveld. Pedestal of Hercules

    If the slide show does not work properly, then click here.

  • A reclining bull in white marble

    temple
    2 comments
    block of marble for lying bull in white marble

    It's been a bit quiet on my blog, because I a big job had in progress. Messages about that to follow later, because it is not finished yet. But last week I carved a reclining bull in white marble. My father asked me: 'How do you take on such a project, how do you make such an animal?’ I explained to him that in such a case I usually make a clay model first.

    I first went looking for photographs, and modeled a rather coarse clay model on the basis thereof. It was all about the posture and dimensions to me. I knew how big I wanted to make it, because I had already bought a piece of stone. If you do it the other way around, it's often a bit more difficult to find a suitable piece of stone.

    Clay Model bull in white marble

    When the clay model was about right, I drew an outline template on a piece of white cardboard (plasterer's milk carton board, see here some tips). I cut out the template and put it on my block of stone.

    These contours I traced on the piece of marble with a marker and then carved them out with a sharp chisel. I then cut away all the excess stone outside of the lines with the diamond saw. The result was a piece of stone that looked as if I'd cut out the outline with a bandsaw.

    Then I put the model and the stone together tightly and I started transferring the dimensions of the head and the body. For this technique, see the aforementioned blog post.

    Nandi-bull in white marble

    Finally, I precarved the bull, on the basis of these sizes, in the rough, and refined, adapted and detailed it by eye. The last step was the detailing and polishing. I ultimately made its head a bit smaller because it was a bit too big in the original design. The bull was carved in white Sivec marble and is about 50 x 20 cms wide, at an height of 33 centimeters.

    I also made a black granite base piece on which it can lie down. Just as the previously made padukas this is a temple piece; the bull Nandi is the mount of Shiva and is traditionally present in every Shiva temple where there is a Shivalingam.

    reclining bull in white marble
    reclining bull in white marble with garland

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