The Ceroplastics congress will have sculptor and medical artist Eleanor Crook as wax modeller in residence, demonstrating the historic Ceroplastic techniques she has researched during many decades’ involvement with this most volatile and vivid of media. Delegates will have the chance to watch a process that has not been undertaken since the late 18th / early 19th century for the duration of the congress and see the intricacies and manipulations involved in creating these almost perfect replicas of the human mechanism.

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Eleanor, a specialist ceroplastician, will present a large wax hand modeled and sculpted anatomical specimen in progress, using the same materials and methods as Clemente Susini the master-modeller of the Italian wax anatomy collections in Florence, Vienna and Cagliari. She has first hand experience of these following research and conservation at the Cittadella dei Musei in Cagliari and the Museo della Specola in Florence, and has experimented with authentic waxes, colours, organic materials, solvents and tools to cast a light on these long-forgotten secrets. She will prepare the musculature and bony parts of a quadrant of the body as an expressive work of sculpture as well as an accurate anatomy study and will demonstrate the filigree work of the historic wax modelers as she adds lymphatic vessels, blood vessels, nerves and other fine structures for all to see. Doubtless discoveries will be made in the course of making at the Museum. Amongst the materials she will present the cold wax encaustic techniques of the Cuni paint company who reproduce historic wax paint formulae.

 

She will present an illustrated conference paper on the final day.

 

Small wax works of hers will be available for sale from the workbench to delegates who would like a unique souvenir of the event.