What to look for when buying a Stone Sculpture:

When buying a stone sculpture from a hawker – roadside stall, the following should be checked:

• Check that the sculpture is not cracked. This is difficult to see an untrained eye because the crack can be camouflaged using polish or putty. To find out whether the stone is solid or has a crack, check it in the sunlight and flick it with your finger. It should make a clear sound.

• Make sure the sculpture has been polished using a natural, clear wax or beeswax. If a sculpture has, for some or other reason, been repaired the artist will add an additive to the wax to hide the repair. This crack can generally be found by rubbing a white piece of cloth or handkerchief over the sculpture surface. Cracks are cause by fissures in the stone. During carving, the stress placed on the stone through the chisel from the blow of the hammer highlights or opens the unseen fissure or cleavage.

• Make sure the sculpture is able to stand on a level surface. Many of the sculptures sold by hawkers, along the side of the road, will stand on the soil or a wedged using pieces of stone or wood. Once the sculpture is removed from this support they can no longer stand and once they reach their new home, cannot be placed successfully without assistance.

• It is advisable that a sculpture purchased has a mounting hole so that it can be mounted on a steel pin. Sculptures are heavy and, if they are not securely mounted, could be a hazard for children in a home or garden.

• Make sure the sculpture you would like to buy is made from the stone the seller says it is made from. This is a very common complaint. Sellers say the sculpture is carved from “Springstone” and it is actually “Black Serpentine” or “Brown Serpentine” polished with shoe polish. “Green Serpentine” is often sold a “Verdite”. Springstone is at least twice as hard as Black Serpentine and is therefore considerably harder to carve. Many of the soft soapstone are carved and polished, using various coloured polish, and then a potential buyer is told it is something else.

Sold stone can be carved into beautiful objects using inexpensive tools. Hard stone requires special tools and skills. It is impossible to produce the shape and forms seen made out of soft stone in hard Opal, Springstone or Verdite. Verdite can be so hard that the artists use old dentist drills to obtain the desired sculpture.

The traditional way of carving – hammer and chisel – produce a completely different range of sculpture to the use of mechanical or electrical tools.