- mold fossil
- cast fossil
A relief is a sculptured art work in which figures are either carved into a level plane or, more typically, the plane is removed to create images sculpted on its surface without completely disconnecting them from the plane. It is therefore not free-standing or in the round, but usually has a background from which the main elements of the composition rise.
There are three basic forms of relief sculpture: bas-relief (low-relief), in which the sculpture is raised only slightly from the background surface; alto-relievo (high-relief), in which part of the sculpture is rendered in three dimensions; and intaglio (sunken-relief), in which the image is carved into the surface material.
A bas-relief (pronounced "bah relief"; French for "low relief" but derived from the Italian basso rilievo) is a form of surface ornamentation in which the sculpted projection is very slight or shallow. The background is very compressed or completely flat, as on most coins, on which images are typically in low-relief.