I propose to complete a doctoral dissertation on the emergence of the bronze statuette as a valued art form in Renaissance Italy by examining aspects of ideation, production, and the physicality of sculpture current in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries but often eclipsed in modern understanding. I will reconstruct the significance of bronze as a material and medium, connect modes of production and replication to the statuette’s status among the arts, and address the life of the object on the shelf or desk and in the hands of its admirers. In so doing, I aim to give a synthetic account of the birth of this hallmark Renaissance type and provide a new window onto the theory and practice of art-making at a time of unprecedented innovation.