Crab

This bronze is a life-cast taken from a Chinese mitten crab (or Eriocheir), an edible variety of crab which lives in fresh water, but returns to the sea to breed. It is distinguished by its 'hairy' mittens on the claws (chela). The origins of the bronze are unclear, but it is most likely a Japanese cast of the nineteenth or twentieth century. It may have been made using the ‘burn out’ method of casting whereby the dead animal is encased in a clay-based mould material and heated to high temperature. The carcass is burnt out, and the space left is filled with molten bronze, which cools and hardens to create a realistic replica of the animal. However, as it is not a particularly refined cast of a specimen, indicating that it may instead have been cast from moulds that were taken from a crab, allowing replicas to be cast. The use of poor moulds or possibly moulds that were worn might explain the poor definition of some areas of the crab's features.