Dave Venell's Sculptures Bring the Lost Wax Method to Motorcars

by Jonathon Ramsey (RSS feed)
Aug 9th 2010 at 11:01AM

Dave Venell taught himself to cast bronze using the lost wax method six years ago, starting off with with historically accurate military figures that went all the way back to the Greek hoplite sentries of antiquity. He recently brought his work into the last millennium, shaping a collection of vintage cars that includes a 1958 Ferrari Testa Rossa, a 1955 Mercedes 300 SLR and a 1954 Jaguar D-Type.

In contrast to the realistic representations of military figures the vintage cars are more Dali than Donatello. The historical accuracy, however, has carried over, with each model being based on a specific car – the D-Type, for instance, is a copy of chassis #OKV2. Erupting from their bases into every dimension, they're big, heavy, and spendy: a single work starts at about $11,000, and that's before you start adding options like lacquer. That means Dave Venell is the name you'll need to remember when you meet "the man who has it all..."

Gallery: Venell 1958 Ferrari Testa Rossa