page_title: The Arts of War and The Arts of Peace
section_title: Casting in Italy
hierarchical_section_title: The Arts of War and The Arts of Peace / Designing the statues / Casting in Italy
caption_attribution_description: English: Former PM of Italy Alcide de Gasperi
context_page_description: The Arts of War and The Arts of Peace are bronze, fire-gilded statue groups on Lincoln Memorial Circle in West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Commissioned in 1929 to complement the plaza constructed on the east side of the Lincoln Memorial as part of the Arlington Memorial Bridge approaches, their completion was delayed until 1939 for budgetary reasons. The models were placed into storage, and the statues not cast until 1950. They were erected in 1951, and repaired in 1974.
  The Arts of War were sculpted by Leo Friedlander, an American sculptor. The Art Deco statuary group consists of two separate elements, Valor and Sacrifice, which frame the entrance to Arlington Memorial Bridge.
  The Arts of Peace were sculpted by James Earle Fraser, an American sculptor. The Neoclassical statuary group consists of two separate elements, Music and Harvest and Aspiration and Literature, which frame the entrance to the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway.
  The Arts of War and The Arts of Peace are contributing properties to the East and West Potomac Parks Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 30, 1973.
context_section_description: In 1949, the government of Italy expressed its interest in using Marshall Plan funds to cast the four Arlington Memorial Bridge statues. In October, officials of the National Park Service and sculptors Fraser and Friedlander traveled to Italy to inspect various foundries and negotiate a deal.
  An agreement was reached, and casting began in 1950. The plaster models arrived in Italy in January. Customs officials, however, were not made aware of how to properly house and care for them, and the plaster statues stood outdoors in cold, snowy, and rainy weather for several weeks.  Fraser's student, Edward Minazolli, traveled to Italy to help oversee the casting process, and discovered the models had deteriorated. With Fraser and Friedlander's permission, he made repairs to the plaster models (taking care to not offend the Italians or make them aware that they had inadvertently damaged them).
  The A. Bruni Foundry in Rome and the Fonderia Lagana in Naples cast the sculptures using the lost-wax casting process. The foundries intended to use fire-gilding to finish the statues. Fire-gilding is a process in which gold leaf and mercury are applied to the bronze. Fire is applied to the area, which causes the gold to adhere to the bronze and the mercury to evaporate. But several problems were encountered during both the casting and gilding phases. The foundries wanted to use joints that while less expensive to cast would not wear well, and the sculptors were forced to intervene to achieve the required quality. Samples of fire-gilded bronze were shipped to the United States, where it was discovered the color was too bright. This required both sculptors to intervene again to achieve the correct color. Minzolli then visited the foundries to check on the castings. He discovered that the Bruni foundry did excellent casting, but its gilding was poor. The casting at the Fonderia Lagana foundry was also of high quality, but not quite as good as that in Rome. Its gilding was better than the Roman foundry's, however. Fraser looked into moving part of the casting work to the Artistic Foundry Battaglia in Milan and the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry in Florence.  The Milan foundry's work was at least as good as that done at the Neapolitan foundry. The Florentine foundry, however, did good casting work but exceptionally poor gilding. In the end, the gilding work on Valor was done in Milan and Sacrifice in Florence. The Rome foundry did both casting and gilding on Aspiration and Literature, while Naples did casting and gilding for Music and Harvest. More than 100 pounds (45 kg) of 24-karat gold (worth $571,300 in 2020) was used in the gilding process.
caption: Italian Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi attended the statues' dedication in the United States.
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