Casts and Models

Often destroyed, the plaster casts made and used during 19th-century restoration campaigns are precious witnesses—a veritable library of references of invaluable interest. This method was a major tool for heritage documentation, particularly for historic monuments, as it allows a precise record of the condition of a sculpted element at a given moment. Prior to large-scale works, it made it possible to assemble a corpus that could serve both the architect, to study and reconstruct the decorative schemes, and the sculptor, to faithfully reproduce missing elements.

Very recently, in 2021–2022, during the restoration of the sculptures in the cour d’honneur overseen by Stéphane Thouin, Chief Architect of Historic Monuments, the National Museum was able to provide sculptors with several old plaster casts to reproduce elements whose deterioration required removal and replacement.

At the end of the Second Empire, Auguste Lafollye had already set the precedent. In 1867, he requested casts of the Gothic dormer elements from the cour d’honneur to create a model that could be applied to those on the south façade. Earlier, between 1858 and 1859, Gabriel Auguste Ancelet carried out a first campaign of casts focusing on the Renaissance dormers of the same courtyard. These elements evidently served as models for his major works to come. Both master builders thus participated in a scientific approach to producing casts, initiated by Viollet-le-Duc on the Autun Cathedral project in 1840, an approach that became widespread in France from 1850 onward.

The collection of casts preserved at the Château de Pau was partly assembled during these architectural sculpture campaigns and partly during those focusing on interior ornaments. The two corbels illustrate the exceptional skill of the casting artisans. These genuine plaster treasures are often only briefly mentioned in work records and other archival documents.

The practice of casting, like that of photography, accompanied restoration projects throughout their evolution. Exact three-dimensional reproduction is still employed today, now systematically through photogrammetry and 3D scanning. The results obtained by these various methods deserve to be preserved, both as documentary archives and as a collection. A dual transmission occurs: that of the material memory of architectural history, and that of the technical knowledge, skills, and processes.