Massachusetts native Henry Kirke Brown, arguably the father of American art bronze casting, built a small foundry in his Brooklyn studio in the late 1840’s to make a number of sand casts of a few small sculptures. At his urging and with his advice, the Ames Manufacturing Company added art bronze production to their business. The Robert Wood Iron foundry (casting art bronze 1866-1875) entered the art bronze arena with new French foundry employees in 1866 after Brown’s falling out with Ames. Other sculptors also defected from Ames to Robert Wood that year.

From the exhibition:Frontier to Foundry: the Making of Small Bronze Sculpture in the Gilcrease Collection, December 2014 - March 2015.
Ann Boulton Young, Associate Conservator for the Gilcrease Museum, 2014.