Antiques: Be cautious when buying bronze pieces and be gentle when caring for them

Kya deLongchamps warns us to be cautious when buying bronze and gentle when caring for it

BRONZE is a fascinating but scary material to many newcomers to antiques. An alloy primarily of copper and tin, valuable originals are highly reproduced. Like glass, it’s a material that can also be very hard to date. Antoine-Louis Barye French 19th-century animal studies (animaliers), and Demetre Chiparus flappers in Art Deco style, snarl and undulate all over Ebay. They are invariably described as “found in my auntie’s attic — I don’t know what it is, could be French”.