The £160,000 Kovačević House — Enigmatic Surplus of a Forgotten Foundry Studio

Kovačević House’s foundry studio retained the weight of cooled metal and halted ambition. Here, surplus once signified profits from municipal commissions and church contracts—£160,000 accumulated in castings, molds, and advance payments—now enigmatic and unmoved.

Bronze, Contracts, and Recorded Surplus

Nikola Petar Kovačević, master sculptor and metal caster, was born in 1856 and trained at an imperial academy before establishing his own indoor foundry.

Married to Milena Kovačević, father of a son named Stefan, his presence lingers in objects: chisels worn smooth at the grip, wax molds tagged with his full legal name, correspondence stamped with cathedral seals, a brass caliper resting beside unfinished figures, and a ledger detailing surplus from public monuments. His habits were structured—design sketches at dawn, casting at midday, finishing and accounting by evening—reflecting a temperament steady, exact, and disciplined.

Patronage Withdrawn and Projects Frozen

By 1911, a sudden shift in municipal leadership canceled multiple monument contracts, freezing payments already advanced. Legal appeals stalled, and patronage dissolved. The foundry studio records the rupture: molds left intact but unused, statues half-finished, ledger entries terminating mid-column. Some works may have been reclaimed; many remain, their surplus recorded yet unrealized.

A final notation rests beneath a bronze maquette: “Retain until commission reinstated.” It never was. Kovačević House stands abandoned indoors, its foundry studio intact, its surplus calculated, and its enigmatic fortune suspended between solid form and silent accounting.