On the question of how to form a model range of “cabinet casting” at the Kasli factory in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries

Abstract

The ways in which the Kasli factory received models for “cabinet casting” from cast iron in the second half of the 19th – early 20th centuries have been little studied in the scientific literature. The All-Russian Museum of Decorative Applied and Folk Art in Moscow held the “Kasli Art Casting” exhibition in 1984, with active participation from the factory's administration, chief sculptor, and art casting workshop workers. This event motivated museum specialists to study the history of the enterprise, which has direct ties to the Russian art industry. The degree of legitimacy of the receipt of author's models and finished industrial samples of the products for the assortment mass casting at the factory remains an unexplained circumstance in the Kasli art production. This study raises the following questions: what are the ways and means of forming a factory model cabinet; whether the owners of the enterprise and the management administration had a well-considered strategy and tactics to obtain the necessary and relevant models for assortment casting; how the objects of Russian and European applied art came to the Ural enterprise as prototype samples for mass reproduction in cast iron, manufacture of reductions and factory chief models.