Editing Plaster cast (section)

{{Short description|Copy of a solid form made in plaster}}
{{for|the use of plaster casts in medicine|Orthopedic cast}}
{{unreferenced|date=December 2018}}
[[Image:HoudonWashingtonNPG.jpg|thumb|Plaster cast bust of [[George Washington]] by [[Jean-Antoine Houdon]] based on a life mask cast in 1786.]]

A '''plaster cast''' is a copy made in [[plaster]] of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a [[sculpture]], [[building]], a [[death mask|face]], a [[belly cast|pregnant belly]], a [[fossil]] or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints &ndash; particularly in [[palaeontology]] (a track of dinosaur footprints made in this way can be seen outside the [[Oxford University Museum of Natural History]]).

Sometimes a blank block of plaster itself was carved to produce mock-ups or first drafts of sculptures (usually relief sculptures) that would ultimately be sculpted in stone, by measuring exactly from the cast, for example by using a [[pointing machine]]. These are still described as plaster casts.  Examples of these by [[John Flaxman]] may be found in the central rotunda of the library at [[University College London]], and elsewhere in the university's collections. It may also describe a finished original sculpture made out of plaster, though these are rarer.