How does this artwork elucidate its Fabrication and restoration of the monument?
The first three Goethe–Schiller monuments in the US were in San Francisco (1901), Cleveland (1907), and Milwaukee (1908). They all incorporated bronze sculptures cast at the foundry in Lauchhammer, Germany; the original sculpture in Weimar is also a bronze casting. The statue in Syracuse is not a casting; it consists of thin copper pieces that are joined together. The statue has a small plaque attached to its base that reads "Galvanoplastik-Geislingen St.", which indicates that it was made by the Abteilung für Galvanoplastik (Galvanoplastic Division) of the WMF Company in Geislingen an der Steige, Germany. Galvanoplastik is a German word encompassing both electrotyping and electroforming. The pieces were fabricated using the electrotyping process, which involves the depositing of copper metal from a solution of chemicals onto the inside of a mold. The process is activated by electrical currents flowing between wires immersed in the solution and a coating on the mold; the coating and the solution both conduct electricity. As in the Syracuse statue, large electrotyped sculptures typically consist of electrotyped copper pieces that are joined together, most likely by soldering. The individual pieces in electrotyped sculptures are a fraction of an inch thick, and one surface conforms very exactly to the details of the mold. The Syracuse sculpture is apparently the only copy of Rietschel's statue that was produced using copper electrotyping, and may be the only public artwork in the United States that was produced by WMF.As can be seen by comparing the 1913 postcard and the contemporary photograph, at some point the decorative electrical lighting fixtures on the staircase leading to the monument were removed. By 2001 the condition of the monument had become very poor due both to weathering and to vandalism. The German-American Society of Central New York undertook a project to restore the monument, in cooperation with the city government of Syracuse. In 2003, the statue was restored by Sharon BuMann, who described the construction of the statue in an interview the same year. At the same time the masonry pedestal for the statue was cleaned, the stairway leading to the statue was repaired, and decorative iron fencing was installed around the statue and pedestal.
bronze Lauchhammer WMF Cleveland Weimar electrotyping Milwaukee Geislingen an der Steige