Question: When was large-scale bronze casting made available to the public?
About the article "The Thinker", section "Casts".

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"The Thinker" has been cast in multiple versions and is found around the world; the history of the progression from models to castings is complicated and still not entirely clear.
About 28 monumental-sized bronze casts of the sculpture are in museums and public places.
In addition, there are sculptures of different study size scales and plaster versions (often painted bronze) in both monumental and study sizes.
Some newer castings have been produced posthumously and are not considered part of the original production.
Rodin made the first small plaster version around 1880.
The first large-scale bronze casting was finished in 1902 but not presented to the public until 1904.
It became the property of the city of Paris — thanks to a subscription organized by Rodin admirers — and was put in front of the Panthéon in 1906.
In 1922, it was moved to the Hôtel Biron, which had been transformed into the Rodin Museum.
The first cast sculpture can be found in front of Grawemeyer Hall on the University of Louisville Belknap Campus in Louisville, Kentucky.
Made in Paris, it was first displayed at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904 and was then given to the city.
This sculpture was the only cast created by the lost-wax casting method.
1979 to 1982 was a period in which Lichtenstein created large-scale sculptures as derivatives of earlier smaller works.
However, "The Mermaid", which was his first large-scale sculpture, was uniquely created for this commission.
He was commissioned to produce "Mermaid" in 1979 for the Theater of the Performing Arts.
The original $100,000 commission included a $50,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant and dollar for dollar matching by art aficionados.
It is the second public art piece in the city of Miami Beach.
Although Lichtenstein produced a mural for Expo '67 in Montreal, this was his first public art commission according to some sources.
Other sources claim that his New York State Pavilion mural at the Worlds Fair was commissioned.
Like almost all 20 of his sculptures produced up to 1980, this "...began as a line drawing, in elevation; proceeded to full-scale blacktape layout; and then to a magna-painted, handcrafted wooden maquette, which established the mold for the casting...in bronze by lost-wax process."
Several stages of development (sketches, drawings, collages and maquettes) are readily available on the Lichtenstein Foundation website.
The reclining mermaid rests atop whitecapped blue waves adjacent to a palm tree.
In contrast to the otherwise serene tropical setting, Licthenstein includes grey steel clouds.
His commentary on this work located in Miami Beach is to emphasize the "absurdity of creating sculptures from such painterly forms."
Subsequent works expanded on "painterly sculpture".
The work continued his 1970's sculptural theme of depicting ephemeral events in physical form with the inclusion of rays of sunlight upon the Mermaid's body.
At the time, large-scale public art was something new to Lichtenstein.
The work was regarded as an extension of his painting into public form rather than as an attempt to produce sculptural artwork.
Incorporating a palm tree and a water-filled pool, "Mermaid" is regarded as "dazzlingly silly and provocative". 
The great civilizations of the old world worked in bronze for art, from the time of the introduction of the alloy for edged weapons.
The Greeks were the first to scale the figures up to life size.
Few examples exist in good condition; one is the seawater-preserved bronze now called "The Victorious Athlete," which required painstaking efforts to bring it to its present state for museum display.
Far more Roman bronze statues have survived.
The ancient Chinese knew both lost-wax casting and section mould casting, and in the Shang Dynasty created large numbers of Chinese ritual bronzes, ritual vessels covered with complex decoration, which were buried in sets of up to 200 pieces in the tombs of royalty and the nobility.
Over the long creative period of Egyptian dynastic art, small lost-wax bronze figurines were made in large numbers; several thousand of them have been conserved in museum collections.
Sri Lankan Sinhalese Bronze statue of Buddhist Alakothiveshwara Tara Devi statue now in England is a wonderful example of Bronze statues.
From the ninth through the thirteenth century the Chola dynasty in South India represented the pinnacle of bronze casting in India. 
Jerald Jacquard was born in 1937 in Lansing, Michigan.
He earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1960 and a Master of Arts in 1962, both from Michigan State University.
In Linda Finkelstein's article, "Sculptor Jerald Jacquard's Work Celebrated at the IMA," she refers to Jacquard as a "pioneer in reviving interest in large scale sculpture for outdoors.
"When Jacquard works, he begins by developing these sculptures from detailed scale models or maquettes.
Jacquard is Professor Emeritus of Sculpture at the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts at Indiana University.
He received a Guggenheim Fellowship for monumental sculpture and a Fulbright Scholarship to study bronze casting in Florence, Italy. 
Franklin Bronze & Alloy Co..
Established in 1878, Franklin Bronze & Alloy Company is one of the oldest continually operating foundries in Pennsylvania.
Historically a sand casting facility, Franklin Bronze expanded into the investment casting market in 1987.
They subsequently increased their investment casting capabilities in 1989, 1991, and 1996, and their investment casting division now operates as a manufacturing facility separate from their sand casting division.
Sigelock Systems partnered with Franklin Bronze to produce the majority of the components for the Spartan hydrant as well as being the assembly and warehousing location.
George was introduced to President and Owner of Franklin Bronze, Robert Barber, in 2009 but their relationship did not flourish until 2010 when Sigelock was searching for foundries to produce their product.