I decided to make a mold of one of these ca 1880 leaf blocks that came from a frieze band on a mansion in Newark NJ that was demolished. It’s a nice little design and it will be quick and easy to make these in red terracotta like the original.
Now it will have to dry out for a couple of weeks before I can use it.
This is exactly what they used in ca 1880 to make the originals, though it was about 5-10% larger.
The design could be a styled boxelder tree leaf, there’s not a lot of trees that have leaves like the terracotta block has, but there are a few, of which the boxelder appears to be most similar;
