Who do you call when you have adamaged life-size bronze sculpture of a 19th century Sioux warrior?Contents-claims specialists, of course! A carrier dispatchedspecialists to do an on-site inspection of the Sioux warrior statuethat was broken during a complicated (and unsuccessful) attempt atmoving the artwork. The insured was claiming $100,000 to replacethe sculpture.

The team was asked to provide its own analysis of thereplacement cost for the statue and to formulate a salvagestrategy. The carrier also wanted to know if it would be possibleto restore the damagedsculpture.

Case Background

When contents experts arrived on the scene, the art specialistimmediately recognized the harmed work to be the creation of anoted living artist. The team also noticed the good condition ofthe statue and photographed every inch to document a surprisinglack of damage to the bronze. What they did find was severalsegments of the statue's integral stone pedestal had been broken,with no harm to the bronze itself. Respecting the implications ofVARA (the Visual Artist's Right Act), our specialists locatedthe artist at his studio to discuss the damage and received hisagreement that his work's artistic integrity would not be impactedby recrafting the stone base.

Next, contents specialists tracked down the stonemason whocrafted the statue's original pedestal. The team provided theartisan with multiple photographs of the damage and worked with himto develop a proper course of action to restore the statue to itsoriginal beauty and value. Due to the unique nature of the stone,the team concluded that replacement stone could not be obtained tomatch the exact graining and hue of the unbroken segments. Theentire base would need to be replaced to ensure a seamless repairthat wouldn’t detract from the statue's presentation.

The Result

The contents specialists team confirmed and communicated to thecarrier that the insured's claimed value of $100,000 for thesculpture was accurate. However, instead of discussing total lossand a salvage strategy, the specialists recommended restoration ofthe statue by means of replacement of the damaged pedestal, craftedby the original stonemason for $4,300. This restoration would allowthe statue to resume a silent vigil in all of its former glorywithout any compromise to the artistic integrity and without anyresulting diminution of value.