{"product_id":"elephant-with-a-mask-cloth-grey-granite-statue-160cm","title":"Elephant With a Mask Cloth Grey Granite Statue - 160cm","description":"\u003ch3\u003eDescription\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn three-quarter view an elephant stands, a beast-mask device carved on the cloth at its back. Its ears are spread, its trunk hangs low, and pale tusks are seated into the granite head, worked separately from a lighter stone. The cloth at its back carries a beast-mask device set within a plain square frame. Beneath is a pedestal of several courses banded with lotus lobes and cloud-scroll friezes over a stepped base. Pale grey granite, dark speckle dense and even right through animal and every course.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eGranite Costs Time, Not Skill\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis animal is the same shape a marble elephant would be and perhaps half again as long in the making, and the difference is entirely the stone. Granite is several times harder than marble, so it is cut with diamond rather than steel, under water running constantly to carry away dust and keep the tooling cool, and in many more passes to remove the same volume. It is also less forgiving of a cut that goes too far, because recovering the surface around a mistake means removing yet more of a material that resists every millimetre. What it returns is permanence: the speckle and the finish here will look the same in fifty years.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA pale grey granite behaves opposite to everything white in this range. Against dark hedging or deep planting it loses its outline and becomes a mass; against pale render, light gravel, limestone paving or a whitewashed wall it separates cleanly and the carved cloth reads. At 160cm the back comes to chest height, bringing the beast-mask into easy view. Granite also takes no harm from frost or salt, so a coastal or exposed position that would slowly matte a marble surface will leave this one much as it arrived.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eGrey Stone Wants a Pale Setting\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwenty-two to twenty-four weeks. Diamond tooling and running water are needed throughout, granite being far slower to cut than any marble here. The pedestal courses are cut and their lobes and cloud-scrolls worked, every bed dressed flat. The animal is roughed standing on its own block, legs kept as heavy columns, then body and the spread ears. The cloth and its beast-mask device are sunk into the back. Tusk sockets are bored after the head is finished and the pale tusks seated. Trunk last of the animal. No pin and no filler go into the granite; the courses bed dry, one upon another. Near 2,390kg of granite, which one crane lift will bed onto a prepared footing. Our main studios are in the UK (Birmingham) and Dubai, with additional global workshops.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSpeckled stone is uncommon in \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/animal-sculptures\"\u003eanimal sculptures\u003c\/a\u003e, and belongs instead among \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\u003e160cm\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":53836584124763,"sku":"MST-ANI-089","price":27394.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0869\/3383\/2027\/files\/MST-ANI-089_1.jpg?v=1787171644","url":"https:\/\/giant-sculptures.com\/products\/elephant-with-a-mask-cloth-grey-granite-statue-160cm","provider":"Giant Sculptures","version":"1.0","type":"link"}