Originally £1350.

A swirling bronze sculpture with blue/green patination on an oak plinth.

Height: 8½".

Depth: 6".

By Philip Hearsey, near the Welsh borders of Herefordshire.

Philip Hearsey's solid bronze sculptures are cast in sand and are hand finished by polishing and patinating to produce a variety of surface colours and finishes.

Sand casting is an ancient process; the procedure requires an original pattern to form a hollow impression in special casting sand, into which molten bronze is poured, creating a solid and heavy vessel.

Considerable work is then needed to refine and finish the surface and form. The colouring is not a coating, it is the surface itself; created by the process of pattination. This enforced oxidisation presents challenging, unpredictable and seemingly endless possibilities. Although based on sound chemical principles it involves a degree of uncontrolable mystery, chance, accident and risk; no two pieces are, or ever will be, quite the same.