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Built to Last: Your Guide to Types of Bronze Sculptures

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Published
03/27/2025

Bronze sculptures or Bronzes are striking, classic and a stunning choice for every art collector. To better understand this ancient artform, keep reading to explore the different types of bronze sculptures available on the market today.


How are Bronze Sculptures and Statues Made?

Artisans used many different methods for creating bronze sculptures. In order to cast molten gold metal into new shapes and sculptures, metalworkers and creatives would often use some of these effective means:

Sand Casting 

This technique is a simplified method for casting and creating bronze sculptures. The artist creates a pattern or mold in fine, compacted sand. They will then pour molten metal through a series of different gates, which then funnels it into the molded shape. As the bronze cools down, it reverts from liquid back to a solid – and it can then be removed from the mold. This was and is a common, widely used method for casting bronze, however, it does not allow for high levels of precision or depiction to scale – plus molds are not reusable making the process inefficient and lengthy. 

Lost Wax 

Another method for producing bronze sculptures is the lost wax casting process which was very commonly employed in the ancient world – namely in Greece by the Late Archaic period, Ancient Rome and China. All of these regions used lost wax casting to create bronze sculptures and objects.

Solid Casting 

Solid lost wax casting means that there have been molds created of the desired final sculpture shape in wax. The sculptor will create a mold of the wax model by covering it in clay or other materials, and the wax will be melted down to create a negative space in which the molten bronze will be poured into. The clay or other external material of choice will be chiselled away once the metal is cooled, revealing the final sculptor. It will need to be cleaned, smoothed and polished to create the striking final effect.

Hollow Casting

Hollow lost wax casting enables artists and makers to create large scale sculptures, much bigger than anything that can be created following the solid lost wax casting technique detailed above. Statues are cast piece by piece – with wax molds containing their own unique bronze shape that are then removed to reveal a matrix bronze alloy which can be cast around an inner clay model. This allows for reuse of models, meaning artists can achieve sizeable works in an efficient fashion – which is why this is the preferred method among modern sculptors in this day and age.

Explore a curation of bronze sculptures and objects for auction online to build your collection with the world’s most ancient and stunning sculpture techniques.

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