How to Make Wax Fruits and Flowers

Original published in the 1860s, this book remains one of most comprehensive references on how to make wax fruits and flowers.

Book Excerpt:

There are no imitations of natural objects more exact and pleasing than those made of wax, more especially the representations of Fruit and Flowers. So exact, indeed, are they, that if well made, the most practised eye cannot sometimes detect the real from the artificial.

In Fruit, the choicest specimens of every clime may be thus assembled in a single vase, in all their apparent lusciousness and perfection; while in their waxen prototypes, lovely Flowers may be viewed in all their gorgeous coloring and transparent delicacy. As ornaments to the drawing-room, when grouped with taste, and blended with harmonic contrast, these waxen objects are not to be surpassed, whether we look at them as records of foreign productions seldom seen, -- of extraordinarily beautiful specimens of home-growth, -- of favorites which it is desirable to preserve, -- or merely as beauties of ordinary production, which the eye delights to rest upon. Indeed, all lovers of flowers (and who are not?) must admire these, -- their lovely images, transparent, vivid, and brilliant as they are.

The very beauty of waxen fruits and flowers, induces the belief that to make them must be difficult. "I can never make any so beautiful as these," is a very oft-repeated expression upon witnessing even a single group. Yet, in truth, no art is of more easy attainment; a little patience, and a little taste, are the whole mental requisites; these, superadded to ordinary care in the manipulation, cannot fail very shortly to render proficient the most inexperienced. Yet it is not to be denied, that a slight knowledge of the harmony of colors and of botany will greatly assist in the perfection of the more difficult of these works of elegance. The chief thing is to know how to select the proper material, and how to set about the work in a proper manner; and, it may be added, to commence with what is most easy. Should it be a fruit, let it be one of a single color, -- as an orange or a lemon; or, if a flower, we might recommend a snowdrop, a violet, or a narcissus, in which there is no complexity, and little penciling...

Beginning with the easiest department, it is necessary to divide the subject into the making of Fruit, and the making of Flowers. These are quite distinct in themselves; the former includes the imitation of all solid objects, with melted wax poured into moulds. The latter includes those more delicate ones, which are made without moulds, of wax previously cut into thin sheets.

Contents Covered:

• Introduction
• Wax Fruit
  • Making Moulds of Two Parts
  • Mould for an Orange
  • Moulds for Lemons, Citrons, Limes, Melons, Capsicums, etc
  • Moulds for Plums, Apples, Pears, Cherries, Closed Peas, etc
  • Moulds of Peaches, Apricots, Filberts, Walnuts, Almonds, etc
  • Moulds for Half Fruit
  • Moulds of Many Parts
  • Moulds of the Pomegranate and Medlar
  • Mould of a Cucumber and an Egg
  • Mould of a Mulberry, Raspberry, etc
  • Pine Apple
  • Section of Fruit
  • Moulds of Small Fruit
  • Grapes, Currants
  • Other Objects
• Casting the Fruit
  • Casting an Orange
  • Casting Other Fruit
  • Stalks
  • Solid Fruit
• Finishing the Fruit
  • To Prepare the Fruit Previous to Coloring
  • Coloring Sections of Fruit
  • Putting on a Rosy Tint
  • Putting on Streaks, Specks, and Irregular Patches
  • To Put a Downiness or Powdering upon Fruit
  • Varnishing a Fruit
• Small Clustered Fruits
  • Not Made by Casting nor in Wax
  • To Make Dark Grapes
  • To Make White Grapes
  • To Make Currants
  • General Observations on Casting Wax
  • Elastic Moulds
  • To Obtain and Prepare Wax
  • To Whiten Wax
  • To Clean a Brush
  • To Remove Wax from a Dress
• Wax Flowers
  • Articles and Materials Required
  • Making Sheets of Wax
  • White
  • Yellow
  • Pinks and Reds
  • Blues
  • Greens
  • Colors Required
  • White and Green Down
  • Brushes
  • Patterns and Shapes
  • Stamens and Pointal
  • To Make Waxen Leaves
  • To Make Succulent Stems, Buds, etc
• Modelling Single and Simple Flowers
  • The Snowdrop, Crocus, Primrose, and Violet
  • The Crocus Tribe
  • Crocus Sativus
  • The Snowdrop
  • The Violet
  • The Heartsease
  • The Tulip, Hyacinth, and Narcissus
  • The Van Trol, or Sweet-scented Early Spring Tulip
  • The Hyacinth
  • The Narcissus
  • The Pink, Jessamine, Daisy, Forget-me-not, Coreopsis, etc
  • The Single Pink
  • The Double Pink
  • Clove and Carnation
  • The Jasmine
  • The Daisy
  • The Forget-me-not
  • The Coreopsis
  • The Cyclamen
  • Other Simple Flowers
  • The Laburnum
  • The Convolvulus
  • The Fuchsia
  • Engraving of a Large Fuchsia
  • Various Parts of the Fuchsia of the Natural Size
  • Bell Flowers
  • The Tobacco
  • Honeysuckle
  • The Poppy
  • The Passion Flower
  • The Single Rose
  • The Chrysanthemum, China Aster, and Other Quilled Flowers
  • The Lily of the Valley
• Modelling of Double Flowers