{"product_id":"walking-leopard-beige-marble-statue-150cm","title":"Walking Leopard Beige Marble Statue - 150cm","description":"\u003ch3\u003eDescription\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eA leopard walks forward with its head turned out, rosette spots over the whole coat. The body is long and lean, the shoulder blade riding as the near foreleg reaches, and the tail hangs with a curl at the tip. The rosette spots are incised in staggered rows over back, flank and haunch, tightening and crowding along the spine. There is no base of any kind - the cat stands on its own four feet. Warm apricot-beige marble, matte and finely granular, cream in the raised passages.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eRosettes Set Out on a Curve\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eA leopard's coat is the whole character of the animal and it is a setting-out problem before it is a carving one. The spots run in staggered rows, which only reads as a coat if the spacing holds - and the surface they cross is doubly curved, swelling over the ribs and falling away at the flank. Marked by eye they crowd where the form turns and open where it flattens, and the cat starts to look moulded rather than carved. So the rows are stepped off from the spine outward with a measure, all of them scribed before any is cut, and the rosettes are then incised working down each side in turn so that left and right stay in step. They go in last, when the modelling beneath them has stopped moving.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn apricot-beige cat needs no contrast arranged for it - brick, render, gravel, paving and dark planting all let it stand out by its own warmth. The one thing to keep it away from is white marble - put them together and the difference in stone is what registers, not the carving on either. At 150cm the shoulder is around chest height and the spots read close to. It has no base, so it goes straight onto grass, gravel or paving like a real animal, and it suits being come upon at close range - the spots are incised shallow and vanish at any distance, which makes a path, a border edge or a terrace far better than the middle of a lawn.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eA Warm Stone That Stands Alone\u003c\/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eSixteen to eighteen weeks. Setting out the rosette spots in staggered rows over a curved flank keeps their spacing true. The animal is roughed walking in the block with all four legs left as columns. The whole side is cut back to the depth of the hollow behind the hip, which leaves rib and scapula proud of it, and the skin is then drawn over what remains. The head, turned out, is cut once the shoulders are settled. The four feet are freed late because there is no slab beneath them, and the rosette rows are scribed and incised at the very end. One block from nose to tail tip, with no pin, no dowel and no filler at all. Some 1,969kg on its own four feet, gantry-borne and bedded onto a prepared footing. Our main studios are in the UK (Birmingham) and Dubai, with additional global workshops.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSpotted cats are scarce through \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/animal-sculptures\"\u003eanimal sculptures\u003c\/a\u003e, and warm stone runs across \u003ca href=\"\/collections\/marble-sculptures\"\u003emarble 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\u003e150cm\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":53841765138779,"sku":"MST-ANI-168","price":22249.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0869\/3383\/2027\/files\/MST-ANI-168_1.jpg?v=1787232280","url":"https:\/\/giant-sculptures.com\/products\/walking-leopard-beige-marble-statue-150cm","provider":"Giant Sculptures","version":"1.0","type":"link"}