The hand of the novelist, captured in plaster. Victor Hugo died in 1885 and a mould taken around time of death was then able to inform casts and models for some time afterwards, like this one. It seems a little creepy to us today …

How elaborate ceiling and plaster decoration like this doesn’t fall down baffles me. Over the fireplace here is the arms of Elizabeth I with the Latin inscription …

These large slabs were made from a mould cast directly from carvings at the Palace of Persepolis, central Iran, in the 1890s. Rather than removing large sections of …