My Life As a Replica by Foster Sally;Jones Sian;

Author:Foster, Sally;Jones, Sian;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ART / History / Medieval
Publisher: Windgather Press
Published: 2020-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

Fertile possibilities

The Ministry changed the game when they realised that creating a reconstruction of the cross, and making a replica from it, were feasible: ‘What we have done is to collect together photographs of the casts and other parts, enlarge them and then mount them on a wall board’, Crane told Cant (Robertson was responsible for this photo montage). They recommended employing Mancini because of the similar work he had done for them, but he would need archaeological and art-historical advice. Although interested, they did not have an available staff resource. Yet Russell knew the man to advise Mancini was Norman Robertson. Trained as an artist and a wood carver, he worked for the Ministry and had made miniature copies of Iona’s carved stones for Russell’s father in 1948, when he was thinking about redisplay options.

By September 1966, the Trust had got a statement from Mancini about how he could create the replica, at an estimated cost of £1680, and Cant, who then visited Mancini and Robertson, became an advocate for the project too: ‘I am strongly persuaded that this is a challenge which we must try to meet, otherwise with the stone deteriorating the Trustees might be failing in their duty to try and restore a replica if only inside a museum’, he told Russell. Cant was also heartened by Stevenson’s interest and view that there could be an American market for the ‘replicas, or miniatures’, for the Trust needed to find funds for the project. When the Trustees met in October 1966, they had a costed proposal before them, Innes had already donated £800 and was offering a further £400. Russell also offered a loan to cover any extra costs, with the expectation that costs would be offset by selling two or three copies. Nervous about the expense, the Trustees wanted to know how much it would cost to make a ‘waterproof replica’, hoping that a fibreglass version, light to transport, would work. By the end of April 1967, the Trustees had authorised Mancini and Robertson to proceed with creating the model.

Ultimately, the creation of the replica was to involve three main stages of manufacture, which are summarised below: creating a full-scale plaster model of the cross, based on Robertson’s photo montage, from which a replica could be cast (Mancini’s task); creating jelly moulds from the model and casting the replica in concrete, along with a second back-up copy; and, having transported the concrete pieces to Iona, erecting the replica on Iona.

This process sounds simple but belies the considerable scholarly, artistic, craft and engineering skills involved, let alone the debates about how an ‘authentic replica’ could best be created.

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