{"product_id":"phoenix-on-peony-rockwork-marble-statue-220cm","title":"Phoenix on Peony Rockwork Marble Statue - 220cm","description":"\u003ch3\u003eDescription\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eA phoenix stands on carved rockwork, head turned back and a long crest trailing. The bill is open and the wings are folded high, cut in courses of overlapping scale-like feathers. The tail sweeps down and back in long plumes combed into fine barbs, laid in overlapping courses with the outermost freed clear of the rest. Two large peony blossoms are carved into the mass at the front, one fully open with a finely netted centre and one in bud, with foliage between - and a small bird is carved in among the plumes itself, its eye and beak fully cut. Warm apricot-honey marble - a warm brown stone - cream in the rockwork and the tail plumes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eCombing a Tail in Courses, From the Outside In\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe tail is two thirds of this carving and the whole difficulty of it. It is not one fanned mass with lines scratched across it: the plumes are laid as separate overlapping courses, each combed into fine barbs along its exposed face, with the outermost freed clear of its neighbours and at least one place pierced right through so daylight passes behind. Every course opened weakens the block for the next, and a plume once freed cannot be supported again. So the whole tail is set out on the raw stone before anything is cut, the courses are opened from the outermost inward, and each is brought to its final section and combed before the one behind it is touched - because a finished plume can be protected and a half-cut one in the way of a tool cannot.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlmost everything else in this range is a silhouette, read from the side. This is not: the crest, the turned head, the two peony blossoms and the fall of the tail are all arranged on one face, and from behind it is a plain mass of stone. At 220cm the turned head is high above the eye and the plumes fall past the waist. So it belongs where it is met head-on and never walked round - against a wall, in an alcove or a niche, at the end of a walk, in a corner of a courtyard, framed in an opening. The warm apricot stone needs no help from what surrounds it - brick, render, gravel, dark planting, the hue carries it against all four - and the pierced tail reads as air only with light behind or to one side of it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eA Piece Composed From the Front\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eTwenty-eight to thirty weeks, the longest lead time in this tranche. Laying the tail plumes as overlapping combed courses is planned from the raw block onward. The rockwork is blocked solid and the whole tail set out on the raw stone above it, since nothing in it can be moved later. The bird's body and folded wings are brought down, the covert courses run from the shoulder down. The plumes are then opened from the outermost inward, each brought to section and combed before the next is begun. The crest, the open bill and the two peony blossoms are cut last. Bird, plumes and rockwork are one stone, with no pin and no filler anywhere. Some 6,214kg for bird and rockwork, craned onto a poured concrete foundation. Our main studios are in the UK (Birmingham) and Dubai, with additional global workshops.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMythical birds sit apart in \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/animal-sculptures\"\u003eanimal sculptures\u003c\/a\u003e, and eastern carving fills \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/classic-sculptures\"\u003eclassic 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\u003e220cm\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 Marble\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/tbody\u003e\u003c\/table\u003e","brand":"Giant Sculptures","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53843256050011,"sku":"MST-ANI-183","price":29202.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0869\/3383\/2027\/files\/MST-ANI-183_1.jpg?v=1787234870","url":"https:\/\/giant-sculptures.com\/products\/phoenix-on-peony-rockwork-marble-statue-220cm","provider":"Giant Sculptures","version":"1.0","type":"link"}