unhampered by doubts and inabilities. It is most
significant both of his accuracy and his freedom that in constructing
his models he dispensed with the rigid iron skeleton on which the clay
commonly is built. Having modeled the different parts of his
composition, he brought them together and supported them from the
outside by means of crutches and tringles, after the fashion of the boat
builders, thus enabling himself to make alterations, corrections and
revisions to the very end of his task. The definitive braces were put in
place only at the moment of the molding in plaster.

[Illustration: PANTHER SEIZING A DEER

_From a bronze by Barye_]

For small models he preferred to use wax which does not dry and crack
like the clay. He also sometimes covered his plaster model with a layer,
more or less thick, of wax, upon which he could make a more perfect
rendering of superficial subtleties. Occasionally, as in the instance of
_The Lion Crushing the Serpent_, cast by Honore Gonon, he employed the
process called _a cire perdue_, in which the model is first made in
wax, then over it is formed a mold from which the wax is melted out by
heat. The liquid bronze is poured into the matrix thus formed, and when
this has become cold the mold is broken off, leaving an almost accurate
reproduction of the original model, which is also, of course, unique,
the wax model and the mold both having been destroyed in the process.
Upon his _patines_ he lavished infinite care. Theodore Child has given
an excellent description of the difference between this final enrichment
of a bronze as applied by a master and the _patine_ of commerce. "The
ideal _patine_," he says, "is an oxydation and a polish, without
thickness, as it were, a delicate varnish or glaze, giving depth and
tone to the metal. Barye's green _patine_ as produced by himself has
these qualities of lightness and richness of tone, whereas the green
_patine_ of the modern proofs is not a _patine_, not an oxydation, but
an absolute application of green color in powder, a _mise en couleur_,
as the technical phrase is. In places this _patine_ will be nearly a
millimeter thick and will consequently choke up all delicate modeling,
soften all that is sharp, and render the bronze dull, _mou_, heavy. To
produce Barye's fine green _patine_, requires time and patience, and for
commercial bronze is impracticable. Barye, however, was never a
commercial man. When a bronze was ordered he would never