nakago　中型

KEY WORD :　art history / sculptures

Also written 中子. Sometimes known as *ogata 雄型. Inner mould. When a metal statue was made by casting, molten metal was poured into a hollow outer mould, sotogata 外型 or *megata 雌型. The nakago was a solid inner mould with the same shape as the sotogata but slightly smaller, often made from a sand-clay mixture. It was fixed inside the outer mould using pieces of metal *katamochi 型持 or metal pins *kougai 笄, and the melted metal was poured into the space between the two moulds. Using a nakago therefore meant that the statue produced was hollow inside, and the difference in size between the outer mould and the nakago determined the thickness of the walls of the finished work. In the lost-wax technique *rougata 蝋型 the inner core nakago was made first and then covered with a wax layer over which the outer mould is constructed. The wax layer was melted away and the two moulds were used for casting as described above. Sometimes the inner mould was called ogata meaning male mould, or written 中子 nakago meaning child mould, whilst the outer mould was called megata meaning female mould.

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