Slush casting of zinc statuettes in the United States was pioneered around 1853 by the Philadelphia-based Cornelius and Baker, then the largest gas-fixture company in the country. The technique permitted three-dimensional castings suitable for chandeliers, table lamps, and mantel decorations to be quickly and inexpensively made. Imitation-bronze paint made the dull gray metal attractive. Statuettes after Clark Mills's equestrian Andrew Jackson were acquired by a number of important collections, including the White House (in 1859). Outside of this, the company's early domestic "bronzes"-genre figures, copies of French statuettes, reductions of antique statues, and American subjects-are little known.
