{"product_id":"elephant-in-red-granite-statue-240cm","title":"Elephant in Red Granite Statue - 240cm","description":"\u003ch3\u003eDescription\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn elephant stands head turned, its trunk hanging and its tusks pale against the body. The ears are spread and the trunk curls in at the tip. The cloth is bordered plainly around a single roundel, with no pendants and no fringe. The roundel holds a single carved character. No rendering of it is given here, since a character misread is a small thing said wrongly to everyone who reads this. Beneath is a pedestal banded with deep lotus-petal lobes above and below, with a scalloped apron along the foot. Brick-red granite, pink-red feldspar shot through with black mica, and tusks of a contrasting white. One beast and pedestal alone is what is priced.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eGranite Changes Every Estimate\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis piece looks like the marble elephants beside it and it is nothing like them to make. Granite is several times harder, which means diamond tooling rather than steel, water running constantly to carry the dust and cool the cut, many more passes to remove the same material, and a schedule perhaps half again as long for the same shape. It is also less forgiving of error, because a cut that goes too deep cannot be worked around as easily in a stone that takes this long to remove. What it gives back is permanence: granite does not weather in any way a person would notice, and the polish it takes will still be there when a marble surface has gone matte.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA brick-red granite is the strongest colour in this range and it needs the right company. Against red brick it clashes; against grey stone or render it reads oddly warm; against green - hedging, lawn, deep planting - it looks exactly right, because red and green sit opposite each other and each makes the other stronger. At 240cm the granite mass sits well overhead, which is where its weight belongs. The pale tusks are the one light note on the piece and they should not be hidden, so avoid a position where the head is in permanent shade.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eRed Stone Wants Green Around It\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwenty-six to twenty-eight weeks. Splitting and squaring the granite courses opens the work, and granite takes far longer than marble at every stage. The lotus lobe bands and the scalloped apron are cut into the finished courses and the bed above worked flat. Once the bed sits true the beast is raised from its own granite: stood first, legs kept as columns, then the barrel and the spread of the ears. The saddle-cloth and its roundel are sunk into the back. The tusks are worked from a paler stone, seated and tested, and finished to length last. Every stage runs under water with diamond tooling. No pins and no fillers go into the granite, and the courses are bedded rather than glued. About 8,067kg for one animal and pedestal, craned apart onto a poured concrete footing. Our main studios are in the UK (Birmingham) and Dubai, with additional global workshops.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRed granite is uncommon across \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/animal-sculptures\"\u003eanimal sculptures\u003c\/a\u003e, and belongs with \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/granite-sculptures\"\u003egranite sculptures\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eSpecification\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003ctable class=\"spec_table\"\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHeight\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e240cm\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBase\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eIncluded\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eMaterial\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eHand-Carved Natural Granite\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/tbody\u003e\u003c\/table\u003e","brand":"Giant Sculptures","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53835198103899,"sku":"MST-ANI-084","price":43399.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0869\/3383\/2027\/files\/MST-ANI-084_1.jpg?v=1787590626","url":"https:\/\/giant-sculptures.com\/products\/elephant-in-red-granite-statue-240cm","provider":"Giant Sculptures","version":"1.0","type":"link"}