Q & A: How can you tell if a piece is really bronze art?
Q: I bought this lamp at a yard sale and was told it was an antique? I can tell it is somewhat old, but can’t tell if it is antique or vintage. I don't if the cherub is copper or bronze? I hope you can tell from just a photo. It is very solid and heavy with seams.
A: The short answer is that it is impossible to tell what metal the cherub is made from just from a photo. You can be pretty sure that it is not made of pure copper, because pure copper is not really used as a cast metal. The seam that you mentioned makes me feel that the piece was cast (as opposed to having been made by a process like repoussé). More than likely the piece is either bronze or brass.
Both bronze and brass are alloys of copper, meaning that they are both a combination of copper and other elements. I cannot say whether the piece is bronze or brass due to the fact that both metals can be patinated (chemically colored), painted, or otherwise conditioned to look similar to each other. As a matter of fact, many other materials such as plaster, plastic, resin (cold-cast bronze), etc. can be made to look remarkably like bronze art. In fact, brass castings are typically passed off as bronze because bronze is generally more valuable.
Bronze castings are certainly heavy for their size, usually more so then brass, but fillers like plaster and concrete can be used to fill the hollow cavities of castings made out of these other materials in order to make them seem and feel like authentic bronze. Add to that a nice heavy base attached to the bottom of the sculpture, and you can have a very convincing "faux" bronze. Unfortunately, the only way to get a pretty good idea is to do some experimenting with the sculpture, and the only way to distinguish metal types absolutely would be to have a metallurgist test a sample removed from the piece.
The original question and answer can be found here.
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