■.i ii i iii i «) w j i m i« ' »m w w»i <— » »M> « ujju ) i rt.-
UNIVEKSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
FPOM THK I.IBWAPN (M-
BENJAMIN PARKE AVERY.
(11 FT UF MRS. AVERY.
Aiieusi, t8g6.
/laessioiis M" (j)J (d V/ Class No.
v^-
WONDERS OF SCULPTURE.
WONDERS
OF
SCULPTURE.
BY
LOUIS VIARDOT
ILLUSTRATED WITH SIXTY-TWO ENGRAVINGS.
NEW YORK:
SCRIBNER, ARMSTRONG, AND COMPANY,
SUCCESSORS TO
CHARLES SCRIBNER AND COMPANY.
1873.
(.30f
n I V K p. S 1 I> E , C A M 11 R I T> E :
rRlMl-.n IIV II. 0. HOUGHTON ANP COMVANA
NOTE.
The present volume is a translation of " Les Mer-
VEiLLES DE LA SCULPTURE," by M. ViARDOT, published
last year by Messrs. Hachette and Company.
The author is so well known as an art critic, that it is
unneccssar}- to recommend his work; but on this account
we regret the more the incompleteness and injustice of
his chapter on Sculpture in England. In mourning over
our short-comings, and ridiculing our public monuments,
he has omitted to mention the works of Gibson, Bailev,
Mac-Dowell, Foley, Bell, Marshall, Woolner, and other
equally eminent sculptors.
The rest of the work, however, is full of interest. The
antique schools, especially the Greek, are ably and fully
reviewed, and the reader is introduced to all the master-
pieces of modern sculpture in continental galleries.
In accordance with the usage of modern scholars, the
original Greek names of the divinities, as Zeus, Poseidon,
Pallas, have been in most cases substituted for their
vi NOTE.
Latin synonyms of Jupiter, Neptune, and Minerva; and,
in the case of a well-known Venus, the proper name,
Melos, of the island in which the statue was discovered,
has been preferred to the generally used Anglo-French
corruption, Milo.
With these exceptions, the translator has endeavoured
to give a faithful reproduction of M. Viardot's work, and
trusts that it may give pleasure and instruction to Enghsh
readers.
N. d'Anvers.
CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
ANCIENT SCULPTURE.
CHAPTER I.
E(;yptian sculpture.
PAGK
Stitue of Ra-em-Ke, of Sepa, of Nesa — Meaning of Egj-ptian
terms — The archaic style — The second artistic epoch — The
renaissance of art in Egypt— Egyptian statues in the Louvre,
in the British Museum— The Rosetta Stone ... 5
CHAPTER n.
ASSYRIAN SCULPTURE.
Influence of Assyrian art on the Greeks, Etruscans, and
Hebrews — Palace of Khorsabad — Discoveries at Koyunjik,
Karamles, Kalab-Shergat — Colossal Bulls in the Louvre —
Assyrian bas-reliefs in the British Museum — Obelisk of
Kalab-Shergat 42
CHAPTER HI.
KTKUSCAN SCULPIUKE.
Statucb in the Uffizi (iallcry : the Idolino, the Chima-ra, and
the Orator — The Lydian Tomb — Etruscan Vases (so-called)
— Rhytons — Amphorse — Vetri Antichi . , . . (j-
Tiii CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
PAC;8
Influence of mythology on Grecian art — Dsedalus — Glaucus —
Dipoenusand Scyllis— Dameas— Ageladas— .-Eginetan marbles
at Munich — Praxiteles — Phidias — Scopas — Grecian Sculp-
tures in the Louvre : the Venus of Milo, Diana Huntress,
Achilles, the Dying Gladiator — at Florence : Niobe and
her Children, the Venus of Medici, the Apollino, the Faun,
the Wrestlers, the Arrotino — at Rome : the Apollo Bel-
vedere, the Laocoon, the Torso Belvedere — at Naples :
the Flora, the Hercules, and the Toro Farnese — in the
British Museum : the Marbles of Xanthus, the Elgin
Marbles, Sculptures from the Parthenon ... 70
CHAPTER V.
ROMAN SCULI'TURE.
Influence of Greece on Roman art— Statues of Emperors and
Empresses : of Ciesar Agrippina, Augustus, &c. ; of Anti-
nous, Balbus, and others — Busts of Agrippa, Nero, Domitian,
Caracalla, &c — Bas-reliefs : Suovetaurilia, a Conclamatio,
the Pra;torian Soldiers . . . . . . . iSl
CONTENTS. \x
BOOK II.
MODERN SCULPTURE.
CHAPTER I.
ITALIAN SCULPTURE.
PAGB
Nicolas of Pisa — Ghiberti — Delia Robbia — Sansovino — Ver-
rochio — Agratus — Michael Angelo : his character and mode
of working ; his sculptures : Bacchus, the Tombs of the
Medici, the Madonna della Pieta, Moses, the Captives,
Brutus, &c — Cellini : his group of Perseus and Andromeda,
the Nymph of Fontainebleau, &c — Ammanato — Bernini —
Algardi — Canova : his Tomb of Maria Christina, his groups
of Perseus with the Medusa's head, and Theseus with the
Minotaur ......... 201
CHAPTER II.
SPANISH sci;l?ture.
Vigarni — Berruguete — Becerra — Tombs of Isabella of Arragon
and Charles V., of Juana la Loca and Philip the Handsome
— Cano — Gines ........ 238
CHAPTER III.
GERMAN SCULPTURE.
Erwin of Baden — Schuffer — Vischer — Dannecker : his group
of Ariadne on the Panther — Ranch — Kiss : his Amazon on
horseback — Rietschel— Thorwaldsen .... 249
h
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
FLEMISH SCULPTURE.
PAGE
Tombs of Charles tlie Bold and Mary of Burgundy, at Bruges
— Sluter— Claux de Vousonne — Jacques de Baerz— Her-
mann Glosencamp : his chimney-piece of sculptured wood . 264
CHAPTER V.
ENGLISH SCULPTURE.
Sir R. Westmacott— Statues of the Duke of Wellington — the
Tombs in Westminster Abbey — Sheemakers — Roubiliac —
Chantry -Baron Marochetti . . . . . .270
CHAPTER VI.
FRENCH SCULPTURE.
Its development in the Gothic ages— Michault Colomb— Juste
— Texier — Demigiano — ^John of Bologna — Jean Goujon —
Cousm — Pilon — Trebatti — Pierre Jacques — Puget : his
groups of Milo of Crotona, Hercules in repose, &c —
Coysevox — Girardon — The Coustous — Bouchardon — Hou-
don — Sculptures by living artists in the Luxembourg. . 283
AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
Absence of interest in the early days— Mrs. Patience Wright
— Houdon — Foreign Sculptors — John Frazee, the first
Sculptor of American birth — Indifference of prominent
Americans to the Art — Horatio Greenough — His Statue of
Washington — Greenough and Fenimore Cooper — Hiram
Powers — The Greek Slave — Thomas Crawford — His (.)r-
pheus — His work at Washington - H. K. Brown — His
Washington, Scott, and Greene — Henry Dexter— Ceme-
tery monuments — Erastus D. Palmer — His popular works
— William Wetmore Story — His literary and artistic pow-
ers — Thomas Ball — John Quincy Adams Ward - Indian
Hunter and Shakespeare — Launt Thompson — John Rogers
— Cleveger, Bartholomew, and Akers — Womeii as Sculp-
tors 336
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
I.
2.
3-
4-
5-
6.
7-
8.
9-
lO.
II.
12.
13-
14.
15-
16.
17-
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23-
24.
25-
26.
27-
28.
29.
30-
Pre-Historic Remains .
Ditto ditto ....
Ra-em-Ke ....
Schafra .....
Colossal Bas-relief, Nineveh, in the Louvre
The Infant Apollo with a Duck .
The Venus of Milo, in the Louvre
Achilles, in the Louvre
Pallas of Velletri, in the Louvre .
Bacchus, in the Louvre
Mercury, in the Louvre
The Tiber, in the Louvre
The Nile, in the Vatican
Faun with a Child, in the Louvre.
The Pretended Germanicus, in the Louvre
A Discobolus, in the Louvre
The Faun of Praxiteles — at Rome
Niobe — at Florence
The Venus of Medici — at Florence
Apollino— at Florence
The Musical Faun — at Florence .
The Wrestlers — at Florence.
The Arrotino — at Florence .
The Dying Gladiator — at Rome .
Venus leaving the Bath— at Rome
The Amazon of the Capitol — at Rome
The Apollo Belvedere — at Rome .
The Laocoon — at Rome
The Torso of the Belvedere — at Rome
The Dancing Faun — at Naples
The Farnese Bull— at Naples
PAI.E
3
8
8
51
63
92
99
ic6
108
109
1 12
113
115
116
118
119
125
12S
131
>3^
134
135
136
139
'39
140
141
142
143
146
xu
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
32-
Zi-
o\-
35-
36.
37-
38.
39-
40.
41.
42.
43-
44.
45-
46.
47-
48.
49.
50.
51-
52.
53-
54-
55-
56.
57-
58.
59-
60.
61.
62.
PACB
Gods. Frieze of the Parthenon . . . . .163
Young Man. Frieze of the Parthenon .... 163
Cavalier. Ditto ditto , . . .164
Cavaliers. Ditto ditto .... 164
Metope of the Parthenon . . . . . .166
Heads of Horses — from the Parthenon. British Museum 171
Theseus, from tlie Parthenon . . . . .172
The Parcse, from the Parthenon . . . . • '75
Torso .... ..... 177
Agrippina of Germanicus — at Rome .... 183
Antinous — at Rome ....... 185
Equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni . . . 207
Ivy-crowned Bacchus — at Florence . . . .212
Statue of Moses — at Rome .... Frontispiece.
The Perseus of Canova — at Rome. .... 230
Mausoleum of Maria Christina — Vienna . . , 232
Theseus vanquishing the Minotaur — Vienna . . . 234
Ariadne on the Panther — Frankfort .... 254
Bronze monument of Frederick the Great — Berlin . . 257
The Amazon — at Berlin ...... 258
Goethe and Schiller ....... 259
Entrance of Alexander into Babylon .... 262
Tomb of the Dukes of Burgundy — at Dijon . . . 266
The Flying Mercury ....... 294
Fountain of the Innocents — Paris. .... 298
Tomb of Pierre de Breze ...... 301
Riding-Master of Marly — Paris ..... 318
Ditto ditto . . . . . . . . 319
Voltaire, by Houdon ....... 327
The Marseillaise, by J. Rude ..... 333
Pediment of the Pantheon, Paris, by David . , . 334
TtIK
WONDERS OF SCULPTURE.
BOOK I.
ANCIENT SCULPTURE.
IN a former work, the " Wonders of Painting^'
we made the preliminary remark, that of the
three arts of design, universally styled " The Fine
Arts," painting was the latest in age, in historical
date. For a long time it was but the handmaid,
the accessory, the finisher of the other two. Sculp-
ture, also, although it preceded painting, long
remained subordinate to architecture, which, of
course, was the earliest of the three. From the
first appearance of our race upon the earth, man
required a habitation to shelter him from the cold
and heat, from the fury of the elements, and from
the attacks of wild beasts. Soon arose a demand
for palaces as dwellings for those whose superior
.'trength or skill had made them chief? of tribes
and kings of nations ; and temples had to be raised
B
2 ANCIENT SCU1.PTUBE.
ill honour of the powers of nature, which man, in his
wondering ignorance and awe, deified and wor-
shipped — invoking their blessings and deprecating
their wrath by presents and sacrifices.
Sculpture, which employed the same materials
as architecture, wood, stone, and marble, soon
stepped in and supplied the earliest ornaments ;
and like architecture, it was at first content to
derive its ideas as well as its materials from inor-
ganic nature. A column was a tree trunk in white
marble, a capital represented the sprouting of
branches and leaves. Gradually, however, arch"-
tecture became perfected, embellished, transfigured ;
it became an art, and from the useful sprang the
beautiful. At the same time, sculpture insensibly
attained to importance and independence.
Relics of the first crude efforts at sculpture and
drawing have been preserved to us from the Stone
Age in the clumsy carvings on rocks or bones found
in caverns, once occupied by the men of that
remote period, and in the ruins of those lake cities
which are almost as ancient as the caves which
sheltered the first inhabitants of our planet.
Sculpture, as an art, gradually advanced as man
became interested in the study of organised nature,
of animals, and, finally, of himself. He was no
longer content to represent things, he endeavoured
ANCIENT SCULP TUL'E.
to imitate living creatures, and to reproduce his
own im: ^e. "After admiring the universe," says
M Charles Blanc, " man began to contemplate him-
Fig. I. — Stone Age.
self ; he realised that the human form is adapted
to the spirit, that it is, so to speak, its clothing ;
that its proportions, its symmetry, its ease of
motion, its superior beauty, render it alone, of all
living forms, capable of fully manifesting thought.
Fig. 2. — Stone Age.
Therefore he copies the human body, and sculpture
is born." We add : from this moment it may be
called statuary. But as the human mind required
4 ANCIENT 'SCULPTURE.
the gradual training of ages before painting pro-
duced what we call a picture, so a long period of
actual and mature civilization was needed before
sculpture, freed from its vassalage to architecture,
could bring forth those independent works which
we name bas-reliets and statues.
( 6 )
CHAPTER I
EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.
I ^AR back in that remote and primitive civiliza-
-^ tion which witnessed the birth and growth
of the fertile Nile, we must look for the origin
of all the arts. The Egyptians excavated the
sepulchres of Samoun and the temple of Karnak
from the rocks, and raised the great pyramids
of Djizeh (Geezeh) on the borders of the desert ;
they engraved epitaphs on stelae or tablets ; they
placed rows of sphinxes resting on pedestals in
the avenues of the temples which contained the
images of their gods and all but deified Pharaohs.
Until the present day it was not unreasonably
believed that Egyptian art under the mflucnce of
the priesthood, or rather, practised by the priests
alone — who had arrested its progress by con-
demning it to the limits of an unchangeable law,
and placing it under the restrictions of religion —
must have been purely sacerdotal from its origin
6 • EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.
and early development to its total extinction.
Recent discoveries have distinctly proved this
to be an error. It is certain, that before they were
restricted by dogma, Egyptian artists were able
freely and truly to represent animate and in-
animate forms in all their variety. M. Francois
Lenormant justly remarks : " Now that we are
well acquainted with its various phases, art in
Egypt appears to liave followed a contrary
direction in its development to that of any other
country. Other nations began with purely sacer-
dotal art, and only subsequently and gradually
attained to true and free imitation of nature.
. . Alone of all the world, the Egyptians began
with living reality to finish with hieratic con-
vention.
The proof of this well-founded assertion was com-
pletely seen in the last Universal Exhibition. The
most indifferent visitors, ignorant alike of archae-
ology and art, were struck dumb with admiration
before a wooden statue which has come down to us
from these most remote ages. "A miracle alike
of preservation and art," says M. F. Lenormant,
•' this statue, as a study of nature, as a striking and
life-like portrait, is unsurpassed by any Grecian
work. . . . From the inscriptions on the tomb in
which it was discovered, we know that it represents
EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 7
a certain Ra-em-Ke, a man of some importance
during several reigns of the fifth dynasty. . . . The
sculptor has represented him on foot, calmly walk-
ing in some town under his government. . . . Parts
of this figure have been much injured ; ... it has
lost the thin coating of coloured stucco which ori-
ginally covered it, and on which the sculptor pro-
bably added his finishing touches. What must it
not have been when intact and free from the
ravages of time .■' Everything is faithfully copied
from living nature ; ... it is evidently a true por-
trait. . . . The modelling of the body is marvellous,
. . . but it is the head which most challenges
admiration ; it is a prodigy of life. . . . The mouth,
parted by a slight smile, seems about to speak.
The expression of the eyes is almost distressing.
The eyeballs are shaded by lids of bronze, and are
formed of pieces of opaque white quartz, . . in the
centre of which are inserted rounded bits of rock
crystal to represent the pupils. Under each crystal
is fixed a shining nail, which indicates the visual
point and produces the astonishing and life-like
expression.
As this Ra-em-Ke lived under the fifth dynasty,
his iconic statue must have been executed about
the year 40(X) B.C. More than 5800 years have
therefore passed over these fragile pieces of cedar
8
EO YF TIAN SO ULP TURK
and mimosa wood without effacing the marks of
the artist's chisel. At the same Universal Exhi-
bition was to be seen the colossal statue in diorite
Fig. 3. — Ra-em-Ke.
Fig. 4. — Schafra.
(a substance harder than basalt) of a Pharaoh of
the fourth dynasty, the celebrated Schafra (the
Chephren of Herodotus), who had the second of
the great pyramids built as a sepulchre for him-
EG YP TIA N SCULPTURE. 9
self. Schafra lived more than a century before
Ra-em-Ke.
At the Louvre we have two statues in calcareous
stone, one of the High Priest of the White Bull,
named Scpa, and the other of his wife Nesa, pre-
served from that early age which witnessed the
elevation of the first great pyramids, under the
third, or, perhaps, the second dynasty. To con-
clude, the Egyptian museum of Montbijou at
Berlin, in addition to some bas-reliefs from the
tomb of Amten of the time of Senefru I. of the
third dynasty, contains the entrance gate of the
pyramid of Sakkara (Sagara), the construction of
which carries us back to the still more remote age
fixed by the tables of Manetho (the correctness of
which has now been so completely established) as
the first of the twenty-six there ascribed to Egypt.
The ornaments on this gate cannot be less than
seven or eight thousand years old. " Such figures
are ovenvhelming ; . . . it is a stupendous antiquity
for the work of a man's hand, still more for a monu-
ment of true art. No relics from ages so near to
that of the origin of our race have been found in
India, China, or Assyria. But the most over-
whelming thought is, that instead of savage races,
we find a firmly constituted society, the formation
of which must have required long centuries of
■/
-*./'
10 EG YP TIAN SCULP TUBE.
development, a civilization far advanced in science
and art. and possessed of mechanical processes
suitable to the construction oi huge monuments of
indestructible solidity." — Francois Lenormant.
The primitive period from the first to the sixth
dynasty is usually called the ancient empire, or
Memphian Egypt. As we have before remarked,
its monuments show freedom, indeed, secularity of
art. Not until after that confused and obscure
period between the sixth and eleventh dynasties,
did the middle empire or Theban Egypt, known to
the Greeks, commence, under which Egyptian art,
condemned by religion to immobility, became
purely sacerdotal and hieratic.
We must here call to mind that paramount and
universal idea which pervaded the religion, the
politics, laws, sciences, arts, public and private cus-
toms, and, indeed, the very amusements and recrea-
tions of ancient Egypt. We allude to the belief in
immutability and eternity. Nothing must change,
nothing must perish. The4iving must lead a life
of uniformity, and even the dead must last for ever.
Weary of this perpetual monotony, foreign nations
pronounced Egypt dull and melancholy.
It was in obedience to their national idea that
the Egyptians, from the earliest ages, built up the
pyramids of Djizeh on imperishable foundations,
EGYPTIAN SCULPTVJiE. 11
and excavated the ^aUs of the kings, the temple of
Karnak, the sepulclires of Samoun and Thebes
from granite rocks, and finally condemned arts of
decoration, such as sculpture, never to change their
subjects, their forms, or their proportions. Fearing
that free imitation of nature in art might infect the
human spirit with a love of independence, the
priests restricted it by immutable rules, and im-
posed models, which it was bound to copy for ever.
It is also very probable that, for greater security,
they reserved to themselves the exclusive culture
of the arts, as they had that of the sciences, astro-
nomy and medicine, and of literature — public
records and national chronicles — leaving only the
trades to the laity. Thus limited, art could merely
add to the images of the gods those of the kings,
ministers, and pontiffs ; it ignored the exploits of
heroes and conquerors, whether in trials of mental
or bodily capacity ; and thus checked in its develop-
ment, it could only manifest itself in purely mechan-
ical delicacy and polish. All its phases of progress,
elevation, debasement, renaissance, and decadence,
were confined to the narrow limits of simple exe-
cution. So that Plato, in his day, could justly
observe that painting and sculpture, practised in
Egypt for so many centuries, had produced nothing
better at the end than at the beginning ; and
12 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.
M, Denon in our own age remarks with equal truth :
" The lapse of time may have led to some per-
fection in Egyptian art, but each temple is so
exactly alike in all its parts, that it seems to have
been sculptured by the same hand ; nothing
better, nothing worse, no negligence, no sudden
flights of a superior genius." M. Denon's words
apply equally to statuary, which was but the acces-
sory o( architecture. We think excellence would
have been a more accurate term to employ than
perfcctio7i.
We will presently endeavour to describe those
works in the various collections of Egyptian relics
most worthy of study and admiration. But before
we turn to this world of the tomb, which seems
never to have been really alive, and review its
sleeping lions, pensive sphinxes, sluggish heroes,
and recumbent gods, without speech, hearing, sight,
or motion, and notice those strange and gross com-
binations intended to embody the divinity, and
which, if meant to exalt, in reality debased it, it will
be as well to make some preliminary remarks.
In the first place, we may learn to recognise the
divinities by their forms and symbols, which were
as unchangeable as the creed itself; and, secondly,
we may discover at about what period their images
were made, and connect them with the correspond-
EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. IS
ing phase of Egyptian art, so as to be able to sa}'-,
when before any particular figure : " This represents
such a divinity, it belongs to a certain period of
Egyptian art, and consequently to a corresponding
era of Egyptian history."
To begin with, we gi\-e the meaning of the names of
different parts of the clothing of Egyptian statues.
Pschent, a cap or crown worn by divinities or
Pharaohs. It is double, composed of the sckaa
and the teshr.
Schaa, a conical cap, forming the upper part of
the pschciit. It is white.
Teshr, a cylindrical cap with an inclined jJeak
behind, and a spiral ornament in front, forming the
lower part of the pschent. It is red.
Alf {diti ?), the crown of Osiris and other divinities,
composed of a conical cap resting on the horns of a
goat, and flanked by two ostrich feathers. The alf
has a disk in the centre of the frontlet.
Tesch. Royal military cap.
Het, the cap of Upper Egypt.
Claft, a head-dress with long lappets pendent on
the neck and shoulders.
Oskh, a semicircular collar or tippet round the
neck.
Schenti, a short tunic worn round the loins. The
statues of the Pharaoh;? also wear the royal apron.
14 EGYPTIAN SCULI'TURE.
Gom, a kind of sceptre, terminating in the head
of the animal called Koukoitpha.
Now follow the forms and emblems of the chief
divinities of Egyptian mythology. When possible,
we shall add the name of the corresponding
Grecian and Roman divinities, and that of the
town where they were held in most honour.
A human form (male), wearing the tcsJir sur-
mounted by two feathers ; or a human form with a
ram's head. Auien, Hamvioii, or Ammon, "the
hidden." The supreme God, king of the gods.
Zeus, Jupiter. Thebes.
A female form (woman), wearing the tesJir.
Mouth, "the mother," wnfe of Avicn. Hera, Juno.
Thebes.
A young man with a single lock of hair upon his
head, and the crescent of the moon. Choiins or
Chons, " force," son of Amen and of Mouth.
Heracles, Hercules. Thebes.
A human form with a goat's head. Noiivi,
" water," called by the Greeks Zeus Chnotimis,
" creator of mankind." Poseidon, Neptune.
Elephantine.
A female form wearing a circular crown of
feathers. Aneka, wife of Noutn. Hestia, Vesta.
Elephantine.
A female form wearing the het, with a goat's
EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 15
horn on either side. Sate, " sun's arrow or beam."
Another Juno, another wife of Jupiter Chnoumis,
Elephantine.
A bandy-legged child or dwarf, with a scarabaeus
on its head, or a human form swathed like a
mummy. Phtah or Phta, god of fire, creator of
the sun and moon. Hephaestus, Vulcan. Mem-
phis.
A female form with a lion's head. Pash't or
Pacht (Bubastis), " the lioness," wife of Phtah.
Artemis, Diana. Memphis.
A human form with the head surmounted with
two high feathers and a lily. Atwn-Nefer, called
" the guardian of the nostril of the Sun," supposed
to be the son of Phtah and of Pash't. Memphis.
A human form with a hawk's head, wearing two
long feathers. Mount, personifying the solar power.
Ares, Mars. Harmonthis.
A female form with a shield upon her breast, or
often w^ith two wings, trampling the serpent Apoph
under her feet. Neith, goddess of wisdom and the
arts. Athena {Athene), Minerva. Sais.
A simple female form with the head of a cow.
Athor or Hathor, goddess of beauty, personification
of the cow which produced the sun. Aphrodite,
Venus. Latopolis and Athos.
A human form, hawk-headed, wearing the solar
10 EGYPTIAN FCULl'TUEE.
disk. Ra (Re), son of Athor, personification of the
rising sun. Helios. Heliopolis.
A human form wearing the pschent on the head.
Aio2iin, the personification of the setting sun.
A kneeling human form with the solar disk upon
her head. Maoii, " brilliancy," personification of
the light of the sun.
A human form with a crocodile's head. Sebak,
"the subduer." Crocodilopolis (Ombos).
A human form with a goose upon its head. Sep
(Seb), " star," god of time. Chronos, Saturn.
A female form with a pitcher of water upon her
head. Nupte, Niitpe or Ncpte, " abyss of Heaven,"
wife of Sed. Rhea, Cybele.
A human form with the head of an ibis, some-
times wearing the lunar crescent. Thoth, '^ Logos, or
the word," son of Ra, inventor of speech and
writing, scribe of the gods. Hermes, Mercury.
Hermopolis.
A human form with four feathers on the head.
En-pe or Emcph, " leader of the heaven," son of
Ra, another form of the god TJioth.
A mummy wearing the het. Ousri (Osiris),
eldest son of Scb and Niipte, then called Oun-Nefer
(Onnophris), "the manifester of good or opener of
truth." Dionysiu.s, the Bacchus of the Greeks.
Busiri.s.
EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 17
A mummy wearing the Alf. Osiris, then called
PetJiempamentes, " he who is resident in Hades."
The Pluto of the Greeks. Abydos.
A female form with a throne upon her head, his,
" the seat," the daughter of Seb and Noicpte, sister
and wife of Osiris. Demeter, Ceres. Abydos.
A female form wearing on her head the hiero-
glyphics of the words mistress zxidi palace. Nep-t-a
(Nephtys), "the mistress of the palace," another
daughter of Seb and Nonpte^ sister and concubine
of Osiris. Persephone, Proserpine. Abydos.
A human form with a hawk's head, wearing the
pschent. Haroer (Harueris), son of Sep and Noupte.
His eyes are supposed to represent the sun and
the moon. The elder Horus, Apollo. Apollino-
polis Magna.
(Osiris, Isis, and Horus represent the beneficent
principle.)
A human form with an ass's head, or an old
dwarf in a lion's skin, wearing feathers. Seth, " the
ass," son of 5rZ' and Noupte, the spirit of evil.
Typhon. Ombos.
A hippopotamus standing erect, with a croc:o-
dile's tail and a woman's head. Taiir or Ta-Hcr
(Thoueris), wife of Seth. Ombos.
Seth (Typhon) and Tniir represent the evil
principle.)
16 EGYPTIAN SCULP TUllE.
A child with weak legs, and locks of hair on
either side of its head. Her, " the path of the sun,"
son of Osiris and Isis. The younger Horus,
Harpocrates. Apollinopolis Parva.
A human form with a dog's head. Anojip
(Anubis), surnamed " the embalmcr of the dead,"
and the "watcher of the gate of the Sun's path,"
son or brother of Osiris. Lycopolis,
A priest seated in a chair unrolling a volume.
I-Emp-Hept, " coming in peace," son of Tliotli.
Asclepios, .i^sculapius. Philae (Philoe).
A pied bull with the solar disk on its head.
Hepi (Apis), " the hidden number," the eternal son
of PhtaJi. Memphis.
A gryphon with the head of an ass. Bar, god
of the Assyrians and Phoenicians (Philistines), the
Baal of the Bible.
A human form in Asiatic costume, with a
diadem bearing an onyx cross on the frontlet.
Renpoii (Rephan), god of the Semitic races.
A human form with the head of an oryx. Nitbi
(Nubia), or Nashi, " the rebel," god of the black
people.
A female form wearing the /let, and carrying the
shield and spear. An fa (Anaitis), goddess of the
Armenians and Syrians.
After this long list of gods, or rather of different
EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 19
manifestations of the same god, which the
Egyptians worshipped under so many forms, we
will pass to the second part of our preliminary
remarks.
We have already stated the nature of early
Egyptian art when still secular and free from the
restrictions of dogma. It is, I believe, admitted
that after its submission to the hierarchy the art,
like the history of Egypt, may be divided into
four principal epochs. The earliest, or " the archaic
style," is entirely included in the middle empire, and
extends from the 6th to the I2th dynasty (about
the year 2000 B.C.) At that time architecture,
simple, massive, and colossal, was content with
piling up masses of stone ; and sculpture, equally
solid, seems to have entirely forgotten its early
excellence and freedom from tutelage. In the
statues of this period the face is large and common,
the nose long and coarse, the forehead projecting,
the hair, of scarcely varying thickness, falls in
straight heavy curls, and the body is thick-set and
clumsy. However the execution, and to a certain
extent the style, improved steadily until the twelfth
dynasty.
At the second epoch, when architecture was more
refined, varied, and richer in ornaments and com-
binations, employing columns and triglyphs, &c-
20 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.
(as seen in the sepulchres attributed to Beni
Hassan) ; statuary was advancing to relative per-
fection, and growing in grace and delicacy. We
now find more symmetry and proportion in the
limbs of the figures, greater truth and finish in the
features, the hair is better shaded, and falls in more
graceful curls ; indeed, some statues are handled
and finished with the delicacy required for cameos.
Bas-relief became more and more uncommon, and
disappeared entirely on the accession of Rameses
II., surnamed Sesostori ("the son reared by the
Creator "), who became the Sesostris of the Greeks.
The invasion of the Arab Kouschites, called
shepherds (Hyksos), under the seventeenth dynasty
(about 2200 B.C.), led to the immediate decline, or
rather cessation and disappearance of art in Egypt,
which did not reappear until the expulsion of the
invaders five centuries later. After the deliverance
of Egypt by Amosis (in the seventeenth century
B. C), under the famous reigns of Mceris, Sesostris,
Rameses III., and Amenophis, called the new
empire, there was a renaissance of Egyptian art.
Architecture reached its highest perfection. Vast
rectangular temples were raised with walls covered
with sculptured ornaments, vestibules with conical
domes, columns surmounted by capitals represent-
ing flowers or papyrus and lotus buds. The
EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE 21
renaissance of statuary was remarkable for a com-
plete return to the archaic style, and palpable
imitation of early sacerdotal sculpture. This,
however, applies to the style alone, the execution
was different. The limbs were freer and more
rounded, the muscles more fully developed, the
features sufficiently refined and varied to raise
them a second time to the dignity of portraits.
The details were completed with the most minute
care, and the general effect is produced by the
finish of every part, rather than by the breadth and
harmony of the whole.
The invasion of the Ethiopians, after the 22nd
dynasty (lOth century B.C.), like that of the shep-
herds, led to an interruption of Egyptian art, which,
however, again revived on the expulsion of these new
interlopers in the reign of Psammetichus I., founder
of the 26th dynasty (about 600 B.C.). The art of
this second, or Saite renaissance, lasted no longer
than the dynasty from which it took its name. Its
chief characteristic was the appearance of a totally
new style, or rather the revival of the portraiture of
the ancient empire. At this time the Egyptians
combined the study of nature and truth with that
of traditional and hieratic art. The iconic figures
of this epoch are numerous and excellent.
The conquest of Egypt by the Persians undci
22 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.
Cambyses (525 B.C.) again interfered with the prin-
ciples and practice of Egyptian art, and led to its
third and final decay. It is true that after Alex-
ander's conquest, under the Ptolemies, and the
Roman conquest, under Adrian and others, effoits
were made to introduce Grecian civilization into
Egypt, and more especially to graft Grecian upon
Egyptian art. But these designs were frustrated
almost immediately, and art became totally
extinct in Egypt under the rule and worship of
the Pharaohs.
The substances employed by Egyptian sculptors
were more numerous than those in favour with the
Greeks ; they required longer work, and were gene-
rally harder, denser, and more durable. Artists were
not content with marble, and it may be said that
every other substance suitable to sculpture is to be
found in their works — black, grey, and red granite,
basalt, diorite, porphyry, jasper, serpentine, cor-
nelian, aragonite, limestone, sandstone, gold, silver,
bronze, iron, cedar, pine, sycamore, ebony, mimosa
or acacia, ivory, glass, porcelain, terra-cotta. The
bas-reliefs were very low and depressed, and were
sometimes hollowed out on the reverse side of the
relief, like those of engraved stones ; they were,
however, but little employed by the Egyptians,
most of their sculptures being in full relief.
EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 28
In statues, at least in all but those in metal or
stone, the arms remain fixed to the chest, and
are not separated from the body, whilst a block of
the material employed connects the legs, which are
no freer than the arms. At the back a plinth is
inserted for the cartouche with the inscriptions.
To this general arrangement, combined with the
.solidity of the materials, is due the strange preser-
vation of Egyptian sculptures as compared with
the terrible mutilation of more recent Grecian
works. The hair falls in straight masses from the
top of the head, and the beard, instead of spreading
along the cheeks, is merely plaited under the chin.
The eyebrows and lashes extend almost to the
ears, the holes of which are on a level with the
eyes, indicating to a phrenologist a limited supply
of brains, and consequently of intelligence. The
lips are very marked, dilated, and smiling, a pecu-
liarity which also occurs in the marbles of yEgina,
even in those which represent the dying and the
dead. When the sculpture is in low or hollowed
relief, the profile is, of course, chiefly employed ;
but even then the eyes and shoulders are seen in
full, as in the Assyrian images, and those by the
earliest Grecian artists.
In all Egyptian sculptures produced after the
archaic epoch, the figures are long and thin, the
24 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.
features calm and without expression, the limbs
and muscles in repose. In addition to immobility,
the chief characteristic of the sculpture of this age
was a regularity, a proportion, a perfect symmetry,
which brought it into intimate connection with
architecture ; and, as I have before remarked, the
fine polish and the exquisite delicacy of the work
in statues and bas-reliefs of the hardest materials
would have been suitable to cameos and precious
stones. A modern sculptor would be puzzled to
carve and polish granite, porphyry, diorite, and
basalt, in the manner of the Egyptians, and one of
their gigantic works would require the labour of
a lifetime. The statues of the gods, kings, priests,
and officers of the court, were subject to immutable
laws ; but often, especially during the later epochs,
the faces of the merely human figures were so true
to nature as to become portraits. The different
deities had a settled type of form and feature, by
which they could be recognised as readily as by
their symbols. The features of reigning kings Avere
often given to these gods, and whilst it reflected
the tone of society, this was certainly the most
shameful adulation to which art has ever stooped.
A man who had been exalted, not only to the
despotic throne of Sesostris, but also to the
pedestal of Osiris, required a pyramid for his
KGYl'TJAS SVUlPTi'lih:. 25
tomb, which was laboured at by a whole uation of
slaves.
These preliminary observations may be a useful
guide to the visitor to the Egyptian rooms of the
museums -in Paris and London, and may enable
him to examine their contents with greater ease
and profit.
It would not be easy to rebuild the Pantheon of
Eg}'pt ; the gods were few — indeed, we are inclined
to believe that, like the Hebrews, the Egyptians
adored but one deity, probably the goddess Pash't,
the wife of Phtah, known also by the names of
Artemis and Hephaestus. In the Louvre we have
but one image of a god, and no less than eleven
statues of this goddess, with the head of a lioness
wearing the solar disc upon her head. The breadth
of the lines and the finish of the work of four of
them give a high opinion of the artists of the
third epoch under the iSth dynasty, yet we
would willingly exchange some of these lioness'
heads for those of dogs, goats, cows, or hawks.
There are more kings than divinities in the
Louvre, and their images belong to various dy-
nasties. We bitterly regret the loss of a cornelian
statuette of Sesurtasen I., of the I2th dynasty,
which disappeared in the July days of 1830. It
■was the earliest of its kind, more ancient than the
26 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE
Statues in pink and grey granite of Sevekhotep III.
of the 1 3th dynasty. All three were executed long
before the invasion of the shepherds, whereas the
four king-sphinxes without cartouches, who have
a kind of lily engraved on their basalt brows,
belong to the ages of the Ptolemies, to the last
relics of the national art. During the long interval
included between these two extreme dates, the
1 2th dynasty and that of the Ptolemies, we find
successively the head and feet of colossi in pink
granite, which are fragments of images of Ame-
nophis III., called Memnon by the Greeks, whose
vocal statue at Thebes seemed to greet the first
rays of the sun with singing. In the ornamented
cartouches which encircle the base of the later
colossus are decipherable the names of twenty-
three conquered races, followed by the Egyptian
idea borrowed by the Psalmist : " That thine enemies
may be thy footstool." The colossal statue in grey
and pink granite of Rameses-Meiamun (the Great),
of the 19th dynasty (about 1500 B.C.), who, not
content with raising the Rameseum of Thebes as
his funeral monument, and sculpturing his victories
at Aboo Simbel and Luxor (Luqsor), deified himself
under the figure of the sun, appropriated to himself
the beautiful images of his father, Seti I., and of
his ancestors, and substituted his own history for
EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 27
theirs even in the temple at Karnak. A sphinx
(a lion with a man's head, symbol of wisdom and
strength combined) in pink granite, a portrait of the
same Pharaoh, in the double inscription on the
base of which is a representation in beaten work of
a gryphon with an ass's head, the type of the god
Seth or Typhon, then the impersonation of courage,
but later of the spirit of evil. Another magnificent
sphinx in pink granite, portrait of the son of
Rameses, Menephtah, who, from certain dates and
events of his reign, is supposed to be the Pharaoh
who was embroiled in disputes with Moses, and
perished in the Red Sea when pursuing his fugitive
slaves the Hebrews. A colossal statue in red sand-
stone of Seti II., son of Menephtah (the Sethos
of Manetho and Flavius Josephus), wearing the
pschent and holding a kind of sceptre in his left
hand, bearing his royal and pompous legend. The
figure of the god Seth, as a man with an ass's head,
engraved several times on the base and the plinth,
is also in beaten work.
In the museum of the Louvre, amongst mere
images, there are some monuments which are far
rarer and more valuable than the statues of gods
and kings. The chief of these are those already
named of the priest Scpa and his wife Nesa, con-
temporary with the first dynasties of the great
28 EGYPTIAN SCULPTUB!-:.
pyramids, and consequently belon;Ting to primitive
Egyptian art, and not less than six thousand years
old. The man is naked, except for the schenti
round his loins, and he holds a large and small
fceptre in c ther hand ; the woman wears a tunic
with a triangular opening on the breast. Two
other groups in calcareous stone, one of two men,
the other of a man and woman, also belong to the
remote antiquity of Memphian art. Another group,
on the contrary, of the father and son, Teti and
Pensevau, both great standard-bearers, are of the
second era of portraits, that of the i8th dynasty.
A statue in grey granite of Un-Nefru, the first
prophet of Osiris, or high-priest of the temple of
Abydos, belongs to the beginning of the second
decadence under the 19th dynasty ; whilst one in
black granite of Horns, chief of soldiers, son of
Psammetichus and Novrcii-Sevek, and another in
black granite of Ensahor, surnamed Psammetichus-
Mowieh, or the Beneficent, are splendid specimens
of the third and last, or Saite renaissance, which
preceded the Christian era by 600 years only.
They are absolute masterpiec'cs for their style
and age, and in them we see in the greatest per-
fection the peculiarly delicate work of Egyptian
artists in substances which appear to defy human
strength and patience.
EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 29
We have said that bas-reliefs are of rare oc-
currence in Egyptian sculpture, as their culture
was abandoned long before that of statuary — indeed,
from the time of Rameses the Great. Two frag-
ments in the Louvre, representing a certain Totnaa,
one of whose numerous titles was Surveyor of
Royal Buildings, are attributed to the archaic
period. Another fragment, a portrait of Seve-
khotep IV., wearing the royal iirceus {aspic or asp),
to whom the god Tapherii, with the jackal's head,
is presenting the sceptre, or symbol of life, with the
words : " We grant a life of peace to thy nostrils, O
good God," is of the 13th dynasty. But although
it is more recent, an artist will value a bas-relief
from the tomb of Seti I., founder of the 19th
dynasty, above all others. It is of calcareous stone
and is entirely painted. Seti I., who, according to
his epitaph, conquered forty-eight nations in the
north and south of Egypt, and had the wonderful
hypostyle room (raised on columns) made at
Karnak, figures in this bas-relief giving his right
hand to the goddess Hathor (Venus, with a cow's
head), from whom he is receiving a necklace with
the left hand. The goddess wears a solar disc
between her horns, and the ura^us upon her fore-
head. The symbolic ornaments upon her robe are
a long address to Pharaoh : " Good god., lord of
80 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.
diadems, loved of the gods, son of J7istice mid of
truth ;' praying him to grant her " thousands of
years of peaceful life and myriads of panegyrics!' *
Although we have few statues of Egyptian gods
in the Louvre, we have a complete series of them
in statuettes. By means of these little figures in
gold, silver, bronze, porphyry, basalt, stone, or
wood, in many cases covered with hieroglyphics,
which were household gods, we are introduced to
the widespread polytheism of Egypt, and we are
able to rebuild its pantheon entirely. Here we
have Anvnon-Ra, lord of the three zones of the
universe (the Egyptian Jupiter), his wife. Mouth
(Juno), his first-born, Chons (Hercules) ; here are
Num (Neptune), and^;^^/^^ (Vesta) ; /•///«/? (Vulcan),
and Pach't (Diana) ; Hunt (Mars) and Hathor
(Venus) ; Thoth (Mercury), and Neith (Minerva) ;
Seb (Saturn), and iV^?///^ (Cybele) ; Ra, Phre, A turn,
or the rising, midday, and setting sun ; the bene-
ficent triad of Osiris, Isis, and Horus ; the male-
volent pair, Seth (Typhon) and Taur, &c.t
We have even compound figures, which unite
several gods in one ; they are double-faced and
* Panegyrics were great state occasions when princes and gods
were extolled. — (Tr.)
+ These three Egyptian divinities, — Ammon, Mouth, and Chons —
Osiris, Isis, and Horus, which occur again in the religion of the
Brahmins as Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, and in that of the
EGYPTIAN fiCULPTURE. 81
shoulder to shoulder. The symbols of the divinities
arc as numerous as the gods. We know that, on
account of true or supposed analogies and pre-
tended resemblances of form and character, the
Egyptians consecrated to each of their gods, or
manifestations of the same god, worshipped under
so many different forms,* one of their native
animals, and those so set apart were called sacred.
The ram was the emblem of Amnion, the ichneu-
mon of Chans, the lion of PhtaJi, the cow of
HatJior, the ibis of Thot, the gazelle of Seth, the
sow of Taur, &c.
Again, as certain gods personified many divinities
in one, different parts of the consecrated animals
stood for single divinities, and monstrous combina-
Buddhists as Buddha, Dliarmas, and Sangghas— are all, like the
Christian trinity, represented by the rectangular triangle. On this
fact, already noticed by Plutarch, some learned travellers (M.
Tremaux amongst others) have recently relied to prove that the
pyramids of Eg)pt, which appear triangular from every point of
view, were religious monuments, in fact actual temples, the entrance
to which was marked by pylons, and the interiors of which were
equally suited to the sacrifice of the living as to the burial of the
dead. A pyramid would be a sepulchral chapel.
* Plutarque diet que ce n'cstoit pas le chat ou le bceuf (pour
exemple) que les yEgjptiens adoroient, mais qu'ils adoroicnt en cs
betes-la quelque image des facultes divines : en celle-ci la patience,
en celle-la la vivacite, ou I'impatience de se voir enfemiez ; par oil ils
representoient la Liberie, qu'ils aimoient et adoroient au dela de
toute autre faculte divine; et ainsi des aultres. — (Montaigne.)
32 FMYPTIAN SCrLPTUBE.
tions of their limbs were types of a complex unity.
They were called symboHc animals. The sphinx,
as the impersonation of united intelligence and
power, could represent other gods according to the
emblem on its head. The different headdresses of
the ura^us or asp could severally typify all the
goddesses ; in fact, by heterogeneous amalgamation,
all the sacred animals were converted into single
impersonations of many types. The beetle, or
scarabaeus, generally made in enamelled terra-cotta,
enjoyed the privilege of being a sort of common
framework on which were engraved images of the
gods, hieroglyphics of their names, or the sacred,
typical, and symbolic animals. This circum-
stance, which connects them with sculpture, ex-
plains the immense number of amulets of this form
found in tombs and collected in museums.
Since our illustrious Champollion discovered the
secret of the hieroglyphics, which had remained
hidden for two thousand years, the ste/cs, or tablets
with historical and funereal inscriptions, have
become the true annals of Egypt. The sU/cs con-
sist of a mixture of figures and symbols, some
merely written, and some engraved in relief,
hollowed out, or produced by a combination of the
two processes, so that they serve to unite sculpture
and painting to writing properly so called ; and for
EGYPTUN SCULP TUBE. 33
these reasons they may be considered works of art,
and claim a place in museums. The historical
tablets, like the Roman Capitoline tables, were
destined to preserv^e the memory of great public
events. Although the epitaphs were only written
in memory of the dead, they form a collection of
useful documents relating to religious, domestic,
and even national history.
The Christians, the Mahommedans, and the
Egyptians alike begin most of their epitaphs with
an invocation of the Supreme Being. The first call
" on the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost ;" the second, on that of " Allah,
the forgiving, the merciful ;" the third, on " Baf,
great god, lord of heaven," whom they represent
by the solar disc between two outspread wings.
Like the Ferouhcr of the Assyrians, the cardinal
points are indicated in this figure either by one of
the mystical eyes of Horjis of the North and Horns
of the South, or by the two sacred jackals, which
typify the utmost limits of the north and south.
Then follows the prayer addressed to Osiris, as the
supreme deity of the infernal regions, called
Pethempamcntes, because he is the dispenser of
all the blessings which the human soul can enjoy
in its pilgrimage across the unknown world. As
there was no fixed formula for this prayer, and the
D
34 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.
words could be varied if the sense were retained,
Egyptian poets could sing the praises of the de-
ceased and the hymn to the god oi Anient i (hell) —
which was sometimes addressed to other protecting
deities as well — in oriental style.
The beauty of the figures and emblems, and the
delicacy of the execution of the stelcB passed through
the same phases of progress — interruption, renais-
sance, and decadence — as did the arts of archi-
tecture and statuary. They, too, had their four
epochs of relative excellence in the archaic ages
and under the I2th, i8th, and Saite dynasties ; and
these historical phases can only be traced in the
Louvre with any exactness in the steles, which are
far more numerous than the statues and bas-
reliefs.*
What we have said of the steles applies equally
to the sarcophagi, a name which has been given
without due consideration to boxes or tubs of
granite, basalt, or calcareous stone, intended to
contain mummies. In very early times, up to the
age of the Shepherds, these tubs, even those appro-
priated to royalty, were entirely without ornament.
Grand decorations were not used for them until
the 1 8th dynasty, and then, during the second
* See the chapter on the Egyptimi Museum in the ^^ Museums of
Paris, '^ pp. 414-418.
EGYPTIAN SCULP TUIiE. 35
renaissance under the Saitc kings, long funereal
pictures and countless groups were engraved upon
ihem. The sarcopJiagl superseded the stcl(S in
hieroglyphic art. Champollion commenced the
stud}- of them, and had at last grasped their
meaning before his premature death. " As the
earthly life was regulated by the diurnal course of
the sun, so the life of the soul in its wanderings
after death was guided by the course of the god of
the lower world, who was supposed to revolve
during the night."
Champollion himself brought home the chief of
the sarcophagi of the Louvre, the one which con-
tains the body of a basilico-granimates called TaJio,
priest of Imhotcp (the Egyptian yEsculapius), under
the 26th dynasty. Every part of it, inside and out,
is covered with inscriptions, written in groups on
the retrograde system. It is considered the master-
piece of engraved sculpture of the Suite epoch —
indeed, artists are never weary of admiring these
thousands of figures, all of which are cut with as
much precision and good taste as if they were
on precious stones.
To complete our account of the sculptured relics
found in sepulchres of important personages, we
must notice those funereal vases, improperly called
canopi by the Romans, because they thought they
30 EGYPTIAN SCULV'IVKK.
recognised in their sculptured lid and rounded base
an image of the fabulous god Canopus. The canopi,
the use of which can be traced from the earliest
times and is lost sight of under the Ptolemies, have
been found in great numbers in the sepulchres of
Memphis, Thebes, and Abydos. They were the
vases in which the priests called diolchytes, whose
office it was to embalm the dead, placed the brains,
heart, and all the intestines, which they separated
from the rest of the mummy. They are invariably
found in series of four in each tomb ; their lids
consist of the heads of \.\\//( (Apollo), Hcrcla (^Hercules), Tinia (Bacchus),
Thalna (Juno).
ASSYB/AN SCULPTURE. 59
We see that in giving this emblem to the mes-
sengers of the Most High, the old legends of the
first Christian era introduced no more of a novelty
than the marquises of the CEil-dc-Boeuf when they
put red heels to their shoes.
At the British Museum there are but two Assyrian
objects which are neither in the form of tablets nor
of slabs. One is a statue found at Kalah-Shergat,
the only one as > et discovered in the excavations
of Assyrian towns. It is headless and much
damaged ; it represented a king on a throne, but it
is of no interest to the artist or archaeologist except
from its own insignificance. The other, which is far
more important, is a small obelisk of blackish marble,
of about two metres high, cut into four sides, and
decreasing in size towards the top. In addition to
ten lines of cuneiform writing, it has twenty bas-
reliefs, with a great many figures of animals, lions,
rhinoceroses, monkeys, horses, &c., led by men
carrying presents. It must have been a trophy of
victory and conquest, representing offerings brought
to the king by the subject people. And as the
intention is so very clear, the little obelisk oi
Kalah-Shergat may, in the hands of a future
Champollion, become a guide to the deciphering of
the hieroglyphics of the cuneiform character.*
* Dr. Hincks already asserts that the two hundred and ten lines of
GO ASS FBI AN SCULPT CUE.
The English and French museums cjntaui many
tiles or bricks with inscriptions in this cuneiform
writing (the letters of which are shaped like the
heads of nails), called Keilschrift by the Germans,
and arroiv-headed character by the English.
Throu2[h the efforts which have been mads since
the time of the traveller Chardin, by Niebuhr the
Dane, Grotefead, Rask, Lassen, E. Burnouf, by
Colonel Rawlinson and Dr. Hincks in England,
and by MM. Jules Oppert and Joachim Menant
at the same time in France, modern science will.
perhaps, at last discover the meaning . of this
writing, and learn to decipher it as it has the hiero-
glyphics of Egypt.
We will conclude by noticing the clear proofs in
the Louvre that Assyrian civilization had a great
and direct influence upon that of the Greeks. These
proofs are, so to speak, written on two silver gilt
cups, one of which is ornamented with a sunken
frieze, and the other by subjects in relief. These
cups were found in the ruins of the ancient Citium,
a town of the island of Cyprus. Their Assyrian
the Assyrian writing contain the royal annals during a period ot
thirty-one years, and that amongst the tributaries of the king of
Assyria are enumerated successively : Jehu, king of .Samaria (called
by Racine in Athalit the proud Jehu), and Hazael, who was made
king of the same country by the prophet Elisha, about SS5 B.C.
ASSYBJAN SCULPTURE. 61
origin is quite evident. They are of the same
shape as those held by the king of Assyria in the
bas-reliefs of Khorsabad and Nimrod. as well as of
the bronze cups found in those palaces ; besides
which, the subjects of the friezes of the cups and
those of the bas-reliefs are identical, the symbols
and the details are the same. When we look at
these Asiatic cups, we can fancy what that vase of
engraved silver was like, which Achilles proposed
as a prize at the race at the funeral of Patroclus,
the vase brought by sea by the Phoenicians to
Troas, and which was of exceeding beaut)\ (Iliad,
Book xxiii.)
We understand also how merchants of Tyre and
Sidon brought similar vases and other products of
Assyrian art, not only to the Archipelago and the
continent of Greece, but even as far as Sicily and
Central Italy, where flourished the art of the Etrus-
cans, who were as renowned for their works in
bronze as for those in keramic art.
62
CHAPTER III.
ETRUSCAN SCULPTURE.
WE must now say a (ew words on Etruscan
sculpture before passing to Greece.
Etruria, a near neighbour of our own, situated at
the gate of Gaul, can also pride itself on a primi-
tive civilization, which although at first purely-
national, except for a slight Asiatic element, sub-
sequently fell under Greek influence, and was
finally absorbed into that of Rome, after giving to
it its creed and superstitions, together with the
rudiments of every art and industry. Pliny asserts
this in twenty passages. The most important
national art of Etruria, was every kind of metal
work, the chasing of jewels of gold and silver, the
casting of bronze statues, the manufacture of
armour, altars, tripods, and all articles made with
the hammer. There are three of great value in
the [/^si at Florence ; the little statue called
Idolino, wliich is probably a Mercury ; the
ETRUSCAN SCULPTURE.
03
ChimcBra, with a lion's head on the shoulders, a
goat's head on the back, and a dragon's head at the
end of the tail ; and lastly, the beautiful and cele-
brated statue of a magistrate haranguing the people,
Fig. 6. — Statue of the Infant Apollo with a Duck.
(Museum of Antiquities, Paris.)
which is called the Orator. We find many other
relics of this great industry in most of the museums,
the Louvre amongst others, but they are gene-
64 ETRUSCAN SCULPTURE.
rally mixed with the Grecian and Roman bronzes.
The Campana collection, recently obtained, has,
however, supplied us with interesting specimens of
this hitherto little known Etruscan art. The
greater number are mere terra-cottas, yet they
are much better preserved than the marbles and
bronzes, and give a very fair notion of what the
sculpture of ancient Etruria was before the Roman
conquest and subjugation. There are a great many
busts, most of them of divinities wearing crowns
and diadems. But of all these monuments of
plastic art, the one which throws most light on the
confused and mysterious history of the Etruscan
people, is certainly the ornamented sepulchre called
the Lydian tomb. On a funeral couch repose two
half-recumbent figures, one of a man, the other
of a woman, in Asiatic costume, which circum-
stance must have given the name to the tomb, as
it is evidently Etruscan. It is agreed that this
precious monument is earlier than the ruin of Coere
(the more ancient Agylla, the modern Cervetri),
that is to say, that it belongs to the fourth century
before the Christian era.
But the term Etruscan art will probably remind
very many readers of those carved and painted
vases which it has long been the fashion to call
Etruscan. It is, however, a mistake to apply this
ETRUSCAN SCULPTURE. f:r>
term to the greater number of objects indicated by
it. It is true that the twelve patriarchal states of
the ancient Etruscan league extended from the
Magra to the Vulturnus, from Verona to Capua.
But they formed a mere confederacy of cities ;
Etruria, properly so called, did not exceed the
limits of Tuscany itself. Now it was to the south
of Rome, in that part of Magna Graecia called
Apulia (the modern Puglia), that the numerous
and beautiful so-called Etruscan vases were manu-
factured, which are really all of Hellenic origin.
We only allude to them here on account of their
name.
It is also easy to class these valuable products of
early Italian industry according to their dates and
places of manufacture. Such are their striking
peculiarities, that their age and source may be
decided at a glance. The earliest, those from
Etruria proper, chiefly found at Cervetri {Caere,
Agylla), are all black, and either without orna-
ments or with clumsy figures in relief of the same
colour. Others, also Etruscan, although called
Egyptian and Phcenician — eastern would be a
better term — have nearly white grounds, with
figures of men and animals painted in dark red.
The next in date in the history of keramic art are
those vases called primitive, with pale grounds and
F
60 ETJiUSCAN SCULPTURE.
no ornaments, but zones or horizontal divisions
crossed by concentric semicircles. Vases of a date
posterior to that of the latest already enumerated
have been found in a more southern neighbourhood :
round Rome, at Vulci, Canino, and in the Basilicata.
They have red or orange grounds, with figures of
men only, painted black. All the subjects of these
reliefs and paintings are mythological, and are
chiefly borrowed from the worship of Bacchus, the
polymorphous and polynomial god (of many
forms and many names).
To this age and country belong the rhytons, or
drinking cups shaped in imitation of the heads of
different animals ; and, lastly, later still and
farther south in ancient Apulia, were fabricated
the celebrated vases of Nola, so called because
they were found in large numbers in the neighbour-
hood of that city of the Campagna, which was
defended by Marcellus against Hannibal, in which
Augustus died, and St. Paulinus is said to have in-
vented bells {campajicB). Unlike those of the agro
romano, the vases of Nola have the figures in brick
or antique «'ed {rosso antico), on a clear and shining
jet black ground. They surpass all others in
elegance and variety of form, in choiceness of
subject, beauty of design, in taste, spirit, grace, and
ease ; in fact, they fulfil the true requirements of
ETRUSCAN SCULPTURE. 67
art. Their perfection was so great th.l they soon
ceased to be regarded as mere doivje.'^tic utensils,
and became decorative luxuries like statues and
pictures. It is remarkable that at first the ancients
made all their vessels for household use in clay ;
the jars or amphorcB, called ■^€pa/io<; or iriOo'i by the
Greeks, for instance, in which they kept wine, oil,
honey, drinking water, &c. ; even the tub of Diogenes
was only a large earthenware pot.
These domestic vases were improved upon until
their form and the ornaments on them attained to
such surpassing beauty as to be true art-objects.
In them we can mark the unconscious development
of that ingenious theory which required the same
harmony in the proportions of a vase or building as
is the rule in the human limbs ; the symmetry of
the height and breadth of the designs was regulated
by one of nature's laws ; it was thought that this
symmetry produced beauty of form, and that an
elegant vase might be compared to a young girl
risine with her arms raised to her head.
It is their form alone which connects these vases
with our subject, their ornaments belong to paint-
ing- It will suffice to state that there are large and
choice collections of them in the chief museums in
London, Paris, St. Petersburg, and Naples, which
last contains no less than three thousand.
e,S E TBI' SCAN SCULP TUBE.
For the same reason, on account of their form,
\vc may notice the vetri aiitichi, glass objects pre-
served from antiquity. If there were still (for there
have been) scholars who denied that glass was
known to the ancients — although it is spoken of by
Job and in the Proverbs, and Pliny has alluded to
its fortunate discovery by the Phoenicians, and to
the skill of the Egyptians in its fabrication — they
could not but own their mistake before the glazed
cabinets of the Etruscan museum of the Louvre.
St. Thomas could no longer doubt, and subterfuges
would fail even Escobar. They would be com-
pelled to acknowledge that the moderns fall short
of the ancients in their facility in this industry.
From these vctri anticlii we can learn the early
forms and the use of ancient glass objects. On the
one hand, we have vases of every kind, small
amphorae, flagons, foot-goblets, and goblets with
handles, lacrymatories, &c. ; on the other, white,
tinted, coloured, chased, and enamelled glasses.
Most of them having been buried in the ground for
centuries, are still stained with the thin coating or
film produced by mineral decomposition, called
patina by the Italians, which is also found on
marbles which have been long underground. On
glass it produces beautiful golden and riilver tints,
or colours which change and blend like those of a
ETRUSCAN SCULPTURE. 69
rainbow. But it tarnishes enamels : they require
to be cleaned by a very delicate process. Many
ancient statues were damaged by being merely
scraped before the art of washing them was dis-
covered.
We must, however, acknowledge that the ancients
did not turn this most useful discovery to such
practical advantage as we do. In windows glass
admits external light whilst retaining the internal
heat of our dwellings ; in mirrors it reflects our
own images ; in spectacles it lengthens the range
of vision of the short-sighted, and makes that
of the far-sighted clear ; and in the microscopes
of the physiologists, and the telescopes of the
astronomer, it opens to us the marvels of infinite
littleness and of infinite grandeur.
70
CHAPTER IV.
GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
WHAT Pliny says of painting — De picturis title, we must remark that the affection
Detween master and pupil, and the gratitude of the latter, were often
So great that the teacher was called father. " So that," says Pliny,
"it is doubtful, when we find the father's added to the artist's name,
whether that of the true or adopted ])arent be intended."
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 101
for the boxing prize in the Olympian games ? Is
it a warrior in a real battle, who seems to be con-
tending on foot with a mounted foe ? The choice
of these three explanations remains open. The
form and attitude are very beautiful, the execution
is delicate and bold, and the energy of strength in
action, as seen in this dancer, athlete, or warrior,
reminds us of two celebrated groups at Florence
and Rome, which belong to the same epoch, at the
beeinnincf of the decadence : we allude to the
Wrestlers and the Laocoon.
In our notice of the Vemis of Melos and the
Huntress Diana, we alluded to the services ren-
dered to art by polytheism. In speaking of the
Achilles and the Gladiator, we may remark that
national education and customs aided to complete
the superiority of Grecian art. From their infancy
men practised gymnastics naked ; athletes wrestled
naked on the stage and race-course ; and the
victors were represented naked in the statues raised
to their honour by the pride of their native cities.
This spread a general knowledge of plastic anatomy,
of the play of the muscles, and the fitness of the
limbs, according to the laws of their construction,
for the various functions of the body. It was by
the examination of his naked figure in the race,
the (lance, the throwing of the quoit, in wrestling
102 OREUIAN SCULPTURE.
and boxing, that the master of the gymnasium
decided for what a youth was fit. The exceptional
man, whose proportions were perfect, and whose
powers were well balanced, was declared pentathlon
(five, or perfect-powered), fitted for the five exer-
cises ; his was perfect beauty. Hence arose the
common taste, the universal rage for physical
beauty, called by Socrates " the result of the good
and useful." In the solemn games of Olympia, of
Nemaea, or of Corinth, it was not only the citizens
who wrestled before assembled Greece ; the States
themselves contended for the prizes, in the persons
of the choicest of their sons ; and to these public
contests, as to the processions which bore their
offerings to the great divinities, they sent their most
beautiful young men ; " in order," says Plato, " to
give a good impression of their republic." Zeno
calls beauty the "Flower of Virtue f' and Socrates
said, " My eyes turn towards the beautiful Autoly-
cus, as to a torch burning at midnight." From this
double current of ideas tending to the same end,
which led to the public games and the religious
creeds, sprung a unique law — the law of beauty —
by which the sculptors of the statues of athletes
and gods were entirely bound. They had a
hundred living models before their eyes, in the
schools where dancing and wrestling were taught,
GRECIAN SCULP TUBE. 103
and in the beautiful women of Ionia, from whom
love was learnt. What is beauty ? A " blind man's
question," replies Aristotle.
We must not, however, imagine that physical
beauty was sought after in Greece to the exclusion
of moral excellence. On the contrary, as remarked
by Aristotle, the Greeks required indications of
intelligence and goodness, in addition to those of
health, power, and skill ; they knew that without
them mere bodily gifts were of little worth, and
might lead to prejudicial results. They wished to
know of a virtuous soul in an agile and powerful
body — mens sana in corpore sano ; and, according
to Plato, he alone was beautiful whose mental cor-
responded with his bodily perfection. " As a
natural consequence of this philosophy," says
M. Louis Menard, " we find, in the effective works
of Grecian sculpture, that man is always repre-
sented as above passion, and stronger than suffering.
In leading minds along the enchanted path of
boauty to the conception of the true and just,
Greece so blended the laws of art and conscience
as to translate them, in her plastic art, by one and
the same expression." Honours and rewards were
not then awarded only to victorious athletes and
heroic warriors, but to all who obtained sufficiently
Lrilliant success of any kind — in literature and art,
KM GliECIAN SCULPTUBE.
as well as in games and war— to become the pride
of their country.*
We will now continue our review of Grecian
works of art in the Louvre,
Aphrodite, the type of supreme beauty, had so
great a charm for the artists of Greece, and they
were able to vary her statue in so many different
ways without radically altering the form, that the
number of images of Venus is greater than that of
all the other divinities put together. The Louvre
contains eiehtcen statues and three busts of this
goddess. After the Vants of Mdos, we come to
another Venus Victrix, not now victorious on
Mount Ida, but vanquishing Mars by her charms.
She holds his sword with the timid awkwardness
of a woman, and by her side Cupid, like an inquisi-
* The Greeks loaded their great citizens, and amongst them their
great artists, with more honours and rewards than did any other
ancient or modern people : their gratitude and lijjerality -were alike
excessive. "There vas a theory in the act of recompense," says
Emeric David, " and the honours accorded by the Athenians were
graduated in such a manner that there was ceaseless emulation.
Proclamation in the tlieatre of the name of the man they desired to
honour ; proclamation at the public games ; a crown conferred by
the senate ; a crown conferred by the people ; a crown given at the
fetes of the Panathenrea ; a portrait placed in a national palace ; a
portrait in a temple ; support in the Prytaneum ; support granted to
. the father, the children, to the descendants of the hero for ever ; a
statue in some public place ; a statue in the Prytaneum ; a statue in
the temple of Delphis ; a tomb; public games and periodical
celebrations at the tomb."
OnECIAN SCULPTURE. 105
tivc child, is trying on the hchnet of the God of
War. A Venus Genitrix, a beautiful statue of the
best era of art, which combines all the usual cha-
racteristics of the mother of the Graces : the apple
of Paris in her hand, one breast bare, the ears
pierced to receive the valuable rings, and the tunic
fitting to the limbs so as to show their graceful
outlines. A draped Venus, with the name of Praxi-
teles written on the plinth, supposed to be an
imitation of the clothed Venus which the inhabi-
tants of Cos demanded of the illustrious statuary,
to rival the nude Venus of Gnidus (Cnidus). A
libertine Venus, which, as restored, is crushing under
foot a human foetus, typifying the destructive effect
of vice upon mankind. The Venus of Aries, found
in that town in 165 1. This was another Venus
Victrix, remarkable for the beauty of the head,
decked with graceful ribbons. In restoring the
arms, Girardon put a mirror in the left hand, instead
of the helmet of Mars or yEneas. The Venus of
Troas, an imitation of a celebrated .statue from the
temple of this Phrygian town : at her feet is a
pyxis, or jewel-case. Two Marine Venuses, one
] ising from the waves at her birth, the other called
] upl.x-a, or goddess of fortunate voyages, etc.
If Venus represents physical beauty, Minerva is
ihc type of moral perfection. On this account, and
too
GUECIAS StULFTUllE.
as protectress of Athens, she was as great a fa-
vourite with the Greeks as the sea-goddess. Het
statues are plentiful everywhere ; there are nine in
the Louvre, amongst which we will notice the
Fig. g. — Pallas of Velletri. (Museum of the Louvre, Paris.)
Pallas of Velletri, semi-colossal, wearing a helmet,
with a mitopon (closed visor), a lance in her hand,
the a;gis on her breast, modestly confining the
GRECIAN SCULPIUJIE. 107
tunic, and an ample pcplum falling to the feet.
The severe and noble attitude of this fine statue,
the fTowing folds of the long draperies, the calm
and sweet expression of the majestic countenance
in the martial head-dress, are as characteristic as
her symbols of the goddess of armed peace, of the
arts, of letters, and of wisdom. The Minerva with
the Necklace, another Pallas in armour, of the exalted
style peculiar to the age of Pheidias, supposed to be
a copy in marble of the Athena in bronze by the
great sculptor, also called tlie beautiful, because
she is adorned with the pearl necklace usually
reserved for Venus. A Minerva Hellotis (whose
helmet is decked with myrtles), which is probably a
copy of some old wooden idol, draped with heavy
stuffs, plaited in perpendicular flutings on the body.
Apollo, the usual type of manly beauty, afforded
as much scope as Venus for the skill of Grecian
sculptors. The French museum also contains nine
statues of this god, including that of the Sun, with
rays about the head, which is not, strictly speaking,
an Apollo, but Helios, the son of Hyperion and Thy ia,
who was only worshipped at Rhodes and Corinth.
Although four of the nine are Pythian Apollos, the
best in the Louvre is one of the two called Lycian,
because the attitude, that of repose, with the arms
folded above the head, and the serpent crawling at
108
QREVJAN SVULPTUHE.
the feet, are suggestive of the Lycian Apollo, to
whom Athens raised a celebrated temple. We
must also admire the young Apollo Saiiroctonos, or
Fig. lo. — Hacchus. (Museum ot the Louvre, Paris.
Lizard slayer, the head of which, although only
restored, is antique, supposed to be a good copy of
the bronze Saiiroctonos of Praxiteles.
(J n E CJA 1 : bcuiri uue.
luy
Agile, and scantily clothed, as Fontaine would
express it, a Diana may always be recognised by the
tunic raised above the knees, which has gained her
Fig. II. — Mercury. (Museum (;f the Louvre, Paris.)
the name of the Fah'-Hinbcd goddess. Of the six sis-
ters of the Huntress Diana in the collection of the
Louvre, the Diana of Gabii is the most celebrated.
110 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
With a graceful movement she appears to be fasten-
ing her chlamys (■)(Xa/xu'i, a linen mantle caught to-
gether on the shoulder). Of the three statues of
Bacchus in our museum, one is the Indian or bearded
(irwyov) Bacchus, and the two others are Grecian ;
one in repose, the other drunken, both wearing the
CredemnoH, or diadem with ivy, and no garment
but a fawn's skin. Three Hercules, amongst others
a semi-colossal group, in which the god of strength
holds his delicate child Telephus in his powerful
arms, with the hind which suckles it close beside
him. Three Mercuries, one with Vulcan, in which
group the gods of the mechanical arts are in a
manner united. As Vulcan is not here deformed, the
two figures were long taken for Castor and Pollux,
or for Orestes and Pylades ; but the Greeks hated
ugliness, and gave beauty even to the Parcae, the
Eumenides, to Nemesis and to the Gorgon. Three
Cupids, all charming. The one trying his bow,
with a graceful body and a bright arch face, is, per-
haps, a copy of the bronze statue made by Lysip-
pus for the town of Thespiae. Another still
younger, full of tender grace, is considered a t}pe
of infant beauty by Winckelmann, and may be a
copy of the one which Parium prides itself on
having received from Praxiteles. The third is a
sphffirist kicking a ball as he springs along.
GRECIAN SCULPTUHE. Ill
Butterflies, the emblems of the soul, were, however,
the usual toys of the god of the affections. A
Nemesis, interesting from the position of the right
arm, which is so bent as to represents a cubit, the
common measure of the Greeks. The allegorical
proportion of merit and reward, this metre was the
type of the goddess of distributive justice. A
solitary Jupiter, coarse, short, heavy, and of clumsy
execution. The small number of statues of the
king of the gods found anywhere, would seem to
imply that Grecian artists despaired of representing
him in all his serene and majestic beauty, after the
Olympian Jupiter which Pheidias translated from a
verse of Homer : "He bent his brows, the hair
shook upon his immortal head, all Olympus trem-
bled " — that Jupiter, the chief of masterpieces,
which should have been as eternal as art itself, but
v/as destroyed at the taking of Byzantium by the
crusaders of Baldwin.
In the Louvre there are but five of the nine
Muses which form the family of Apollo and Mne-
mosyne. First the colossal statue of Melpomene,
from the theatre of Pompey at Rome. It is four
metres high, and none of the entire statues be-
queathed to us by antiquity are of greater dimen-
sions. Fragments alone suggest the idea of larger
colossi, such as the Hippomacin of Lysippus, or the
112
G 11 EC I AN SOUL P TURK.
gigantic brazen Apollo raised over the port of
Rhodes by his pupil Chares. In spite of her massive
size, this Muse in the tragic buskin is as graceful
and elegant as the Farncsc Flora, the giantess of
Naples. A Urania holding up the skirt of her tunic
with her left hand, which really rather resembles
iini'iiiiii " It'll. ':ii[i iiini iii!iiiiiiiii(iiiiini^
yiri7BESIT7]
i^irov.-^-
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 137
then a majestic ynno, called the Jimo of the Capitol ;
then a finely-draped Diana ; an Egyptian Minerva
(Neith) ; a Harpoerates, distinguished by his lotus
crown ; a Disconsolate Hecuba, and two Amazons ;
one of them, with a short tunic which does not
cover the legs, who is grasping her bow in an
energetic manner, might be called a Huntress
Diana, if she had the symbol of the Goddess of
Night on her brow.
. From the Capitol we pass to the Vatican.
Although very modern, almost recent, the
museum of the popes is extremely rich in anti-
quities. The various vestibules, halls, and galleries,
especially the portico called della Corte, contain an
immense number of bas-reliefs, columns, capitals,
sarcophagi, vases, candelabra, animals, busts,
statues, and fragments of every kind, selected from
those which have been dug from the ground of that
Rome which Pliny said contained more statues
than inhabitants, and from the soil of which,
according to the Abbe Barthelemy, no less than
seventy thousand have really been exhumed. To
realise these figures, we must remember that
Pausanias asserts that Nero took five hundred
bronze statues from the temple of Apollo at
Delphis alone. How many of marble ? I can
but select the best specimens for notice in so vast
138
GRECIAN SCULFTUl.E.
a field, and mention such masterpieces as might
be collected in another Tribuna*
The most celebrated statue of the Vatican, and
Fig. 25. — Venus leaving the Bath. (Rome.)
so to speak, the most popular, is certainly the
Pythian Apollo, better known under the name of
the Apollo Belvedere, because it was at first placed
* We refer the reader to the Itineraire ot Italic, by M. Du Pays,
which mentions the different parts of the Museum of Antiquities,
and their most interesting contents.
GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
139
in that room by Michael Angelo. This statue was
found at the beginning of the i6th century, in the
baths of Nero, at Porto d'Anzo, the ancient Antium.
Every one knows that Apollo is represented in
Fig. 26. — The Amazon of the Capitol. (Rome.)
the act of discharging a mortal arrow at the Pvthon,
from which his statue acquired the name given it
by the Athenians and preserved by Paiisanias.
This explains the somewhat theatrical attitude of
140 GREC'IAX SCULPTURE.
the body, and the proud and triumphant expression
of the face. Winckehnann, Mengs, and a hundred
others have pronounced this Apollo the most beau-
tiful of antique statues, the perfect model of the
sublime. " To realise the merit of this master-
piece of art," says Winckelmann, " the mind must
soar to the realm of incorporeal beauty, and strive
to imagine a celestial nature, for there is nothing
mortal here. . . ." But other enlightened judges
have contested its exclusive right to the first place.
Canova and Visconti think it is a copy, more
delicately executed, of the ancient bronze Apollo
by the sculptor Calamis, erected in Caria by the
Athenians after the great plague ; and Chateau-
briand declares it to be "too much vaunted." Is
there then no medium term } It appears to me
that, although it does deserve most of the praise
of its enthusiastic admirers, the Pythian Apollo
ought not to hold the first rank alone, but that it
should share it with such works as the Venus, the
Diana, and the Gladiator, of Paris ; the Venus, the
Niobe^ the Faun of Florence ; the Laocoon and the
Mercury of Rome, etc. Perhaps it would appear
more superior if it were less celebrated. As it is,
every traveller on his first visit to the deep and
illuminated niche, in which a kind of altar has been
raised, when he hears from the lips of the guide the
fig. 27- — The Apollo of the Belvedere. {Rome. Vatican.)
Fig. 28. — The Laocoon. (Rome.)
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 141
solemn words ''Apollo Belvedivc',' anticipates such
surpassing beauty, such passionate emotion, that
disappointed in his expectations, he either mutters
or exclaims aloud the dictum of Chateaubriand.
It is the same with the ocean, the Alps, and all
great things which have been much eulogised ; the
first view does not do them justice. A little time,
a little patience is needed before appreciation
comes.
The Laocoon can better undergo the terrible
ordeal of the first sight. All imitations and copies,
even that of which Bandinelli was so proud, are so
inferior to the original that the first introduction
to its real beauty is almost an unexpected surprise.
We understand why first Pliny,* and later Michael
Angelo, Lessing, and Diderot, awarded the palm
to this famous group ; we comprehend the fete
held by the Romans on the ist of June, 1506,
under Julius II., in honour of its discovery. The
Laocoon expresses physical agony, and a will
stronger than agony, better than any other piece of
sculpture. Not even the family of Niobe, or that
embodiment of active resisting force, the Wrestlers,
the chiselling of which has seldom been excelled,
can be said to surpass it. It is the work of
Agesander, of Rhodes, aided by his two sons,
* Opus omnibus et picturae et statuariae artis prseponendum.
142 gr::cian sculpture.
Polydorus and Athenodorus. According to Pliny,
this whole group was wrought out of one block of
marble. As the subject is from the second canto
of the y^neid, in which Virgil tells the fate of the
high priest of Neptune, we may conclude that it is
of the age of the first emperors, when even Greek
statuary had left the calm simplicity of the
time of Pericles far behind. The Mercury (or
Meleagcr) is a fine statue, in perfect preser-
vation, replete at once with grace and vigour, of
which it is enough to state that it is justly
classed with the most valuable works which have
come down to us from antiquity. B it in the
opinion of connoisseurs, they are all inferior to a
mere broken fragment, a Torso, also called The
Belvedere. It is in white marble, the remains of a
statue of Hercules in repose, by ApoUonius, son of
Miston or Nestor of Athens, as stated in the Greek
inscription on the base, so that it must belong to
the great age of Greece. (See Fig. 30, p. 144.) It is
remarkable for every beauty possible in a single
form, and combines the most opposite excellencies,
such as energy and grace, strength and elasticity.
Michael Angelo called himself the pupil of the
Torso. He copied the details and the general
effect in his figure of St. Bartholomew in the Last
Judgment ; and it is related that in his extreme
Fi£j. 29. — The Torso of the Belvedere. (Rome. Vatican.)
, ^ of IBM ^
GRECIAN SCUl.rrURE.
143
old aee, when he was almost blind, he still liked
to trace those outlines with his trembling fingers
at which he had so often gazed with admiration.
True or false, this anecdote shows the spirit of the
Fig. 2'j. The Dancing I-',iun. (Xaples.)
age, and the enthusiasm of great artists for anti-
quity ; and it paints the portrait of the man" who,
from his birth to his death, loved art and art alone,
In the museum dcgli Studj at Naples, there are
144 GRECIAN SCULPTUIiE.
some bronze antiquities obtained in excavations at
Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae. They are very-
rare, as numbers of the same kind were destroyed
in barbarous times, for the sake of the valuable
material. Of about a hundred of these figures, the
best are — the little Dancing Faun, a perfect gem,
a very marvel of grace, ease, and vivacity ; the
Sleeping Fami ; the Drunken Faun, leaning over
his bottle and snapping his fingers ; the Seated
Mercury, which evidently belongs to the best age
of Grecian art ; the figure called Sappho, also the
bust of Plato, the hair of which is most delicately
chiselled ; a horse, sole remnant of the quadriga^ of
which it formed part.
Amongst the marbles of the Stndj, the Vejius of
Capita and the Venus Callipygos take first rank.
The first, grouped with Cupid, represents the god-
dess victorious over her rivals in the meeting on
Mount Ida. Although the amphitheatre of Capua,
where it was found, was built under Hadrian in the
best age of Roman art, this Venus is so beautiful,
that it is supposed to belong to the grand era
of Greece, and to be from the chisel of Alcamenes
or Praxiteles. The graceful attitude of the Venus
Callipygos explains the Greek name, which is un-
translatable. Casts have made this fine, delicate,
and bewitching statue familiar to every one, and it
GRECIAN SCULP TURF.. 145
is justly called the rival of the Venus de Medici.
The Apollo with the Swan should be classed with
these celebrated statues of Venus. Winckelmann,
forgetting that of the Belvedere, pronounced it to
be the finest of the statues of Apollo, and that the
head is the perfection of human beauty. The
name of Farnese has been given to three very
valuable antiquities of great renown, which were
found in 1540, in the thermal baths of Caracalla,
during the pontificate of Paul III. (of the House of
Farnese). The Flora, although a colossal statue,
like the Melpomene of the Louvre, is light, animated,
and full of grace. Greek characters inscribed on
the base of the Farnese Hercules prove it to be the
work of the Athenian, Glycon. At first only the
torso was discovered, and Paul III. ordered Michael
Angelo to supply the missing legs. But the Floren-
tine had scarcely finished his clay model, when he
broke it to pieces with a hammer, declaring he
would not add a finger to such a statue. It was a
less celebrated, and less scrupulous artist, Giacomo
della Porta, who restored the work of Glycon.
A little later, the legs were found in a well, three
miles from the baths, and the Borghesi presented
them to the king of Naples, who was thus enabled
to complete the antique statue almost entirely, the
left hand alone being still wanting. The history
L
14G
GRECIAN SCULPTURi:.
of this colossus sufficiently proves its beauty and
value. It is a marvellous representation of power
in repose — of the calm, self-sufficient strength de-
scribed by Aristotle {de Physiognomia)
•f '&■ 3'- — T'lc Fariiese KuU. (Naples.
The enormous group to which the name of the
Toro Faniese has been given, was found with the
Flora and the Hercules. According to Pliny, it
was Asinius PoUio who brought it from Rhodes to
OREGIAN SCULP TUB K. 147
Rome. A whole family of artists, father and sons,
worked together at the Laocoon, and in the same
manner two sculptors, Apollonius and Tauriscus,
combined to produce the Toro. In fact, it is th
most extensive work which has been preserved to
us from ancient statuary ; it is more than a group,
it is a complete scene. It is the history of Dirce.
Antiope, the wife of Licius, king of Thebes, being
divorced on account of Dirce, ordered her sons,
Zethus and Amphion, to bind her rival to the horns
of a wild bull ; but just as the savage beast was
starting forward, Antiope v/as softened, and par-
doned her. Such is the subject ; the four human
figures and the bull are all larger than life, and on
the base, or rather theatre of the scene, there are
plants, a Bacchus, a dog, and other animals. Ac-
cording to Pliny, this immense work was chiselled
from a single block of marble, fourteen hands long
and sixteen high. Its size alone, which is quite
exceptional for a sculpture, would suffice to make
this composition in marble important, but although
restored in several parts, it is also worthy of atten-
tion and admiration on account of the vigour and
delicacy of the workmanship. Although not ccjual
in this respect to the marvellous Laocoon, the Toro
Farnese may be classed amongst the most beautiful
Grecian statues which have come down to us.
148 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
The following statues must also take high rank :
— Ganymede aftd the Eagle ; a semi-colossal sitting
statue of the Apollo CitharcBdjis, playing the lyre,
finely draped, in spite of the hardness of the mate-
rial, which is all of porphyry, except the head,
hands, and feet of white marble ; an Atlas
stistahiing a Celestial Globe, a fine and powerful
figure, which admirably renders the exertions of a
man bending under his burden ; and, lastly, the
admirable Greek statue, by an unknown author, of
Aristides. As there is no acknowledged portrait
of the wise Athenian, it is evident that the statue
has been named from a supposed resemblance to
his character. It is, in fact, an unpretending, calm,
honest face, with the serenity of virtue on the brow,
and is well named the Just. Canova, who had a
great affection, almost a reverence, for this statue,
has marked on the floor of the room in which it is
placed the three best points of view for thorough
appreciation of its beauties.
We might mention other important relics of
Grecian art scattered over Europe. The Museum
of the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, for instance,
which long possessed a beautiful Chaste Venus,
given to Peter the Great by Pope Clement XL,
a Jupiter Serapis, a small statue of Hygeia, the
draperies of -which are excellent, &c. ; has lately
GRECIAN SCULFTUUE. 149
acquired, from the Campana Museum, a valuable
series of Nine Muses, all Greek, and of about the
same size, which make the Russian an entirely
unique collection. But we must hasten to London,
and reverently admire those most marvellous relics
of the genius of the Greeks, exhibited in the British
Museum.
The Lycian room contains the remains of the
ancient city of Xanthus, on the river Xanthus or
Scamander, in Lycia, which was immortalised by
Homer. They belong to the epochs included between
the year 545 B.C. and the Byzantine Empire. The
most ancient are bas-reliefs from the Harpy Tomb,
which stood on the Acropolis, on the origin and
meaning of which various conjectures, founded on
mythology, have been hazarded. With these bas-
reliefs there is a figure of the Chimcsra, that fire-
breathing monster whose body was a combination of
that of a lion, of a dragon, and of a goat. A native
of Lycia, the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, and
slain by Bellerophon, this fearful creature was in
reality nothing more than an impersonation of a
small volcano on the summit of Mount Cragus.
The more recent bas-reliefs are Roman works, with
which we have nothing to do at present, and which
merely illustrate the different conquests of Lycia
and her changing creeds. The principal are of an
150 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
intermediate age. They come from what is simply-
styled the Monument of Xanthus. Sir C. Fellows,
who collected them, made a little model of the
original block in painted wood, which gives the
form, size, and site, and by means of which an
entire lateral wall has been rebuilt with the ruins.
We see that it was an Iconic peristyle building,
with fourteen columns, running round a solid cella,
and the statues in the intercolumniations placed on
a base, and supporting a light attic. Two sculp-
tured friezes decorated the upper and lower part
of the base. Although much mutilated, the best
preserved, the finest, and the most interesting parts
of this ruined temple, are some of the female
statues, which alternate with the columns of the
circular gallery. The heads, hands, and feet are
wanting, but the bodies, the arms, and the legs are
admirably proportioned, the action is full of grace,
and the execution very superior. Robed in a
transparent stuff which the Romans called togce
vitrece, nebula linea, ventus textilis (robes of glass,
clouds of linen, wind tissue), they are, so to speak,
chastely nude. Agile and slender, they seem to
cleave the air, in running or dancing. Some have
at their feet marine emblems, such as dolphins,
crabs, or sea-bird halcyons, and they are therefore
supposed to form the escort of Latona, on her
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 151
arrival at Xanthus, with her children, Artemis and
Apollo. If this mojiuinent of Xanthus be the trophy
of a Persian victory, it is a Grecian work of art
of the great age between Pheidias and Lysippus.
As a proof of this assertion we may refer to the
Greek inscriptions, in which occur some verses by
the poet Simonides, the flatterer of tyrants and
princes ; and also to the style and the perfection
of the remains, especially of the statues, which are
such that no other people and no other age could
have produced them.
The PJiigaleian Saloon is so called because it
contains two friezes, in bas-relief, which adorned
the interior of the cella, or sanctuary, of the cele-
brated temple of Apollo Epicurius (or the deliverer),
built on Mount Cotylion, at a little distance from
the city of Phigaleia, in Arcadia. One of these
friezes occupies eleven slabs of marble, and the
other twelve. The first represents the Battle of the
Centaurs and LapithcE, the latter that of the Greeks
and Amazons, two subjects treated again and again
by the artists of heathen antiquity, because they
combined beauty of form, variety, and action. To
justify the interest taken in these Phigaleian sculp-
tures, it is enough to remember that they belong
to the age of Pericles, which is to say that they are
contemporary with the sculptures of the Parthenon.
152 OliECIAN SCUIA'TURE.
But the interest of the Phigaleian saloon really
centres in some other antique remains, which would
have been better placed in the Lycian room with
the marbles of Xanthus. It is well known how the
second queen, Artemisia, widow of her brother
JMausolus, King of Caria, had a celebrated tomb
raised in honour of her brother-husband, in the
town of Halicarnassus. about 353 years B.C. This
monument was at first called Pteron, but sub-
sequently Mausoleum, and from it all future tombs
took their name. It was considered one of the
seven wonders of the world, and was built by
Phiteus and Satyrus, and adorned by five sculp-
tors, viz., Pythis, who made a quadriga for the top ;
Briaxis, who sculptured the bas-reliefs for the
northern side ; Timotheus, those for the southern ;
Leochares, those for the western ; and the cele-
brated Scopas, or Praxiteles, those for the eastern
side. The date of the monument and their names
prove that all these artists belonged to the latter
days of the great Athenian school. But they
neither copied Pheidias nor his style. Working for
Asia, they assumed a different manner to their
fellow countrymen and contemporaries. As M.
Viollet-le-Duc remarks, they might have been called
.'omantic at that early date. In the conquests of
[he Romans and Parthians, the Maiisolcuin shared
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. ir.3
the fate of all buildings raised by Grecian genius.
We know positively that in 1322 the knights of
Rhodes employed its walls and fragments in the
construction of the castle of Halicarnassus, which,
under the victorious Turks, soon became the for-
tress of Boudroum. In 1846 they were presented
by the Sultan Abd-ul-Medjid to Sir Stratford
Canning, and by him to the British Museum.
Since then Mr. Charles Newton has joined together
the fragments of one of the horses of the colossal
quadriga by Pythis, and of a statue supposed to be
Iconic, or a portrait of Mausolus.
In passing to the Athenian room, the Elgin
Saloon, which may be called the true sanctuary of
the British Museum, we must briefly name certain
objects which are classed with the marbles of the
Parthenon. They are worthy of notice, not only
because they are all Grecian, and mostly Athenian,
but because of their great value as monuments
of the architecture and sculpture of the ancients.
Amongst various remains of temples, altars, and
tombs, we must name a capital and a piece of the
shaft of a Doric column of the Parthenon. These
two fragments give a just idea, without measure-
ment, of the proportions of the temple of the
Acropolis of Athens.* A capital and some frag-
• To explain how a single fragment of the mins 'if a Grecian
f
154 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
merits of the shaft and base of an Ionic column of
the portico of The Erectheum, which surrounded
temple can give an idea of tlie whole, we must remember that
certain constant principles were followed in the religious architecture
of Greece. We will give a brief summary of an explanation of this
fact from the Course of Architecture by M. Beale.
"At first, when Hellenic society was still in its infancy, the
temple was but a shelter for the god, and as clumsy as himself.
Upright trunks of trees were stuck into the ground in such a manner
as to form a long square, then a beam was transversely laid along
the two elongated sides, to support the sloping rafters of the roof.
The trunks being liable to decay, both at the end in the earth and
that under the beam, cubes of stone were inserted at either extremity.
Little by little columns in stone or marble supplanted the frail and
rough trunk, the stone dice at the top and bottom became respec-
tively the capital and the base of the column. The lateral beam
changed into the architrave, frieze, and entablature. The points or
projections of the rafters of the roof became the triglyphs, and the
hollow spaces between them the metopes. By sloping to the right
and left in obtuse angles, the roof formed the triangular pediment
on either fa9ade, and, finally, the ornaments of detail, such as
bucrania, (heads of victims,) egg-mouldings, palm-leaves, rosettes,
mea-nders, etc. , had all been employed by nature before they were
borrowed by art.
" The orders then developed themselves historically by natural
combinations. First came the Toric order, or that of the rough and
vigorous Dorian race, which, like them, was strong, austere, and
masculine. Then the Ionic order, that of the soft and voluptuous
race of Ionia, was pleasing, elegant, and feminine. The flutings of
the small columns may be likened to the plaits of dresses, and the
festoons of the capitals to wreathed head-dresses. Finally the
Corinthian order, that of refined civilization, combined the
characteristics of the two sexes and the two races in its complex
beauty.
" This primitive type became fixed, and it was in accordance with
it that all the temples of Greece were erected, differing from each
other merely in size and amount of decoration. But the parts always
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 15c
the double temple, dedicated to Minerva Polias
and to Pandrosus (the daughter of Cecrops whc
kept the secret of the birth of Erechtheus). These
are precious relics of Grecian architecture, very
finely finished, which prove the exquisite manner
in which every part of this temple by Pheidias was
worked up. It contained one of his three Pallases,
the Polias, which was no less celebrated than the
Lemnian and the Warrior Pallas ; some fragments
of Propylaea from the temple of Nike Apteros
(or victory without wings), from the temple of
Theseus, from the tomb of Agamemnon, at
Mycens, etc.
Amongst various inscriptions of laws and annals,
there is one styled the Sigean. It relates to the
presentation of three vessels, a cup, a saucer, and a
strainer, for the Pjytaneiim or hall of justice at
Sigaeum, a little town of the Troad, in which was
the tomb of Achilles and Patrocles. This insigni-
ficant inscription is valuable on account of its being
written in the most ancient Greek characters, in the
style called boicstrophedon, because the lines follow
remained in accordance with the whole, both in their proportions
and in their style. As a fossil fragment of an antediluvian animal
gives a geologist a measure of the whole, so any portion of a
Grecian temple gives the size of the edifice, the architectural order
adopted, and even the amount of general decoration employed."
156 GRECIAN SCULPTUBE.
each other in the same direction as furrows made
by an ox in ploughing, that is to say, one line goes
from left to right, and the next back from right to
left ; " like those," says Pausanias, " who run the
double stadium," and so on to the end of the page
or tablet. Inscriptions in this primitive form of
Grecian writing are very rare.
Amongst the sculptures which do not belong to
the Parthenon, we must single out for admiration
and study a much mutilated colossal statue of
Bacchus, which was on the top of the choragic
monument raised to the memory of Thrasyllus, by
the remorseful Athenians, who had put him to
death after the naval victory of Arginusae ; and
still more must we admire a well-preser\'ed ar-
chitectural statue which all may gaze upon in its
primitive perfection. It is one of the four caryatides
which supported the little roof under which the
olive-tree of Minei-va was sheltered in the temple
of Pandrosus. It has been placed on the capital of
a Doric column of the Propylaea. It is on foot,
upright and immovable, but beneath the heavy
falling folds of the long tunic, one knee moves
slightly, and by suggesting life and animation,
breaks and gives a kind of undulation to the
general outline of the body. This trifling action
marks the great difference betv/een Egyptian art.
GliECJAN SCULPTUnE. 157
servilely submissive to an inflexible creed, and that
of Greece, which was as free from dogmas and as
independent as the democracy of Athens.
An emblem of calm power, this admirable
caryatid might be taken for a Kancphora, for she
seems to bear the capital which crowns her, and the
entablature supported by this capital, with as much
ease and grace as if it were a mere amphora. This
statue is of the same age and style, and perhaps
from the same hand, as the Pallas Polias ; in any
case it is worthy of the author of the latter, the
divine Pheidias.
We now come to the marbles of the Parthenon.
In the centre of the Acropolis (upper town) or
fortress of Athens, stood the temple of the guardian
goddess, Athena, from whom the city took its name.
Dedicated to the Virgin Minerv^a (Parthenos), it was
called the Parthenon (or Virgin's Chamber). The
Persians under Xerxes, w^ho were iconoclasts like the
jews, utterly demolished it, when, before the battle
of Salamis, Themistocles withdrew the Athenian
troops to their ships. After the glorious victories of
the Median war, when Athens, her democracy re-
stored, occupied the first rank amongst the towns
and states of Greece, Pericles had the Parthenon re-
built (about 440 B.C.). The site and proportions of
the ancient temple, which was called Hccatompedon,
158 GBECIAN SCULPTURE.
because the facade measured a hundred Greek
feet, were retained, but the form and decorations of
the later building were entirely new. Ictinus and
Callicrates were charged with its construction, and
Pheidias, who had been elected president of public
works by the popular voice, was commissioned to
supply the ornaments. He cannot have executed
this great work alone. When we remember how
many statues he made for the temples of Greece,
we cannot doubt that he received help from his
colleagues and pupils. But Pheidias in the Parthe-
non, like Raphael in the Stanze and Loggie of the
Vatican, had supreme control over the works : he
chose the subjects, drew the plans, the pediments
the metopes, the friezes ; corrected, touched up,
and finished the works of his helpers, and himself
chiselled the chief figures of the large compositions.
The colossal Pallas Promachos, or Warrior,
which occupied the most prominent part of the
Acropolis on a high pedestal, and which rivalled
that great Zeus Olympms which was accepted as
his image by the king of the gods himself,* was
evidently from the hand of Pheidias ; because on the
* Jupiter himself approved this work ; for when it was finished,
Pheidias entreated the £od to give him some token if he were
satisfied ; and it is related that a thunderbolt immediately struck
the pavement of the temple on the spot where a bronze urn is still
to be seen. Pausanias, Eli..e, chap, xi.)
GRECIAN SCULPTUBE. \b°>
regis of the goddess who sprung, not from the brain
of Jupiter, but from his own genius, he has inscribed
his own portrait by way of signature.*
Some Anytus (artists are no less intolerant Oi
each other than theologians) charged him with
impiety, as the son of the sculptor Sophroniscus
was afterwards accused. Pheidias had to flee his
ungrateful country, and thirty years before Socrates
drank the hemlock he died in exile. But his work
was finished, and when the few last fragments have
crumbled into dust in the course of ages, Pheidias
will still be immortal. As long as the traditions of
the human race are preserved upon our earth, he
will retain the name bestowed upon him by the
admiration of the Greeks — he will be the " Homer
of Sculpture."
Unfortunately the natural ravages of twenty-
three centuries have not alone wrought havoc in the
works of Pheidias which adorned the Parthenon.
Man has too much aided the destructive action of
time. No corner of the earth was richer than
Attica in monuments of art ; no corner of the earth
was oftener or more cruelly devastated by all the
enemies of art, by war, conquest, and the fanaticism
* At the foot of his Jupiter Olympms, which, hke the Warrior
Minerva, was a chryselephantine statue, that is, one formed of gold
and ivory, wa? inscribed : "Pheidias, Athenian, son of Charmides,
made me."
100 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
of religious sects. The destruction of the buildings
of Athens must have begun with the conquest of
the Romans under Mummius, Metellus, and Sylla
who laid a desecrating hand on all the temples of
Greece, that they might accumulate a promiscuous
collection of spoils in those of Rome. Under the
Romans again, when the double throne of the
empire was under Christian sway, the monuments
of Greece, especially the temples, fell a prey to the
rage of the first converts, who, in their blind
fanaticism, broke all the idols and other objects of
heathen worship. A third and terrible devastation
took place during the heresy of the iconoclasts,
which was rampant in the Byzantine empire from
the fifth to the eighth century. Then came the
crusades, and the conquest of Greece, and taking
of Constantinople under Baldwin of Flanders (1204).
These barbarians of the West, who broke in pieces
the Zeus Olympiiis and the Hera of Samos, until
then preserved in the city of Constantine, did not of
course spare the Pallas of Athens. And, lastly,
v.'hen Roger de Flor and his Aragonese adventurers
took Attica from the Grecian empire (1312J, when
the Venetians took it from the Aragonese (1370),
and when Mahomet II. wrested it from the
Venetians, we can imagine that no class of pillage or
devastation was spared. But the conquest of the
GMECIAN SCULPTURE. ifil
zealous Turkish iconoclasts was not the hist
calamity which fell upon the city and temple of
Pallas. The Venetians reconquered Greece in 1687,
and were not expelled from it by the Turks
until 17 1 5, after many bloody battles, and when in
1821 all Greece rose against her Egyptian and
Turkish masters, and during the nine years that
the war oi independence lasted, until the French
expediton in 1828, there was not a town which did
not have to resist assaults, not a building which
was not converted into a fortress. Situated as it
was, in the Acropolis, the Parthenon could not
escape the common doom, and the bullets of Islam
destroyed all that had been spared by the Turks
of Selim and Mahomet, the Venetians, the Ara-
gonese, the crusaders, the Byzantine iconoclasts,
the bigoted Christians, and the barbarous Romans.
France, the disinterested liberator of Greece, might
justly have claimed the privilege of reverently
collecting the remains of the Parthenon she had
freed ; but the English were before her, not in the
service rendered, but in carrying off the prize. We
know that during his embassy to Constantinople,
from 1799 to 1807, Lord Elgin, profiting by the
weakness of Sclim III., whose policy and actions
he guided, pillaged the temples of Greece without
ceremony, although not without excuse, and took
M
162 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
possession of all the sculptured decorations which
still remained in the Parthenon. Though satirized
by the personal enmity of Byron, Lord Elgin
brought to England the produce of his successful
pillage, and the marbles of the Parthenon were
then placed in the room in the British Museum
which is named after their ravisher.
To illustrate what these precious spoils were
before they were torn from the building they
decorated, two small models of the temple of
Minerva have been placed in the same room. One
represents the Parthenon as a whole, as it was in
the age of Pericles ; the other, what it has been
reduced to by time and the hand of man ; a melan-
choly heap of ruins and rubbish. With these
models before our eyes, it requires but little atten-
tion and consideration to restore everything to its
place in our imagination, and from these scattered
fragments entirely to rebuild the work of Pheidias.
It consists of three principal parts— the frieze,
the metopes, and the pediments. The exterior
frieze of the cella, or sanctuary, inside the colonnade
or peristyle, which entirely surrounded the cella,
was simply called the frieze. It consists of a long
series of marble slabs, succeeding each other
without interruption, of equal proportions, all sculp-
tured in bas-relief, and all relating to one subject,
GE A CJA X SC ULPTUn E.
163
so that it is easy to see what place each one oc-
cupied in the original plan. The subject is the
o-eneral procession of the grand Panathenaic
(Panathenaia) fetes, instituted in honour of Minerva,
by the old King Erichthonius (1500 B.C.), when the
goddess of Athens was proclaimed goddess of
all Attica. They were celebrated once every four
-'•■SUii^Jti'
Fig. 32. — Gods. Fig. 33.— Youug Man.
(Frieze of the Parthenon.)
years, and the lesser Panathenrex' appointed by
Theseus were annual. In the grand fetes a rich
peplos, embroidered by the maidens of Athens, was
presented to the goddess. It was borne in pomp to
the temple, on a ship moved by hidden machinery.
Some of these marble slabs are wanting in the
British Museum Collection (we have one in the
l()4
GRECIAN SVULPTUME.
Louvre), and t!ieir places have been supplied by
plaster casts to complete the series, which is
arranged in the Elgin Saloon in the same order as
it was on the outside of the cclla of the temple of
Minerva.
The subjects of the bas-reliefs of many of the first
of the slabs are gods and goddesses or deified heroes,
Fig. 34. — Cavp.lier.
Fig. 35. — Cavaliers.
(Frieze of the Parthenon.)
all seated in pairs : Jupiter and Juno, Ceres and
Triptolemus, ^Esculapius and Hygeia, Castor and
Pollux. Trains of females follow^ with their faces
directed to the gods to whom they are carrying
gifts. Certain of the directors or regulators of the
procession receive the presents oft'ered to the gods.
After the females come the victims destined for
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 165
sacrifice, the chariots and charioteers, the metcsci,
or strangers resident in Athens, bearing on their
shoulders a tray filled with fruits, cakes, and
other offerings ; lastly came the horsemen, young
men of high rank from the towns of Attica, un-
armed and wearing the cJilamys only. The groups
of horsemen and women, the former especially, are
certainly the best part of the frieze of the Par-
thenon. Nothing can exceed the variety and
boldness of the attitudes of horses and men. The
elegance of the forms, the accuracy of the propor-
tions, the powerful modelling, the delicacy and
finish of the chiselling, combine to make them the
masterpiece, the unattainable ideal of the art of
bas-relief.
The sculptures of the great external frieze were
called metopes, because they occupied the spaces
between the architectural ornaments, called tri-
glyphs, which surmounted the entablature of the
colonnade. The metopes w^ere square niches, which
formed a kind of frame for the subject represented.
They were painted in antique red (rosso antico),
and the intervening triglyphs were blue. As these
niches were, on the one hand, not deep enough for
statues, and on the other, too high up and far back
for bas-reliefs to be visible, they were supplied with
ornaments in high relief which were of a medium
166
GRECIAN SCULPIURE.
character between full and low relief. These
metopes, of which there are sixteen, all represent
episodes of the conflict between the Centaurs and
Lapithae, or rather between the Centaurs and
Athenians who, under Theseus, joined the Lapithse,
Fig. 36.— Metope of the Parthenon.
a people of Thessaly then g-overned by King
Pirithous the friend of Theseus, for the destruction
of the Centaurs, a race of the valleys of Ossa and
Pelion, the licentious robber sons of Ixion and
the Phantom or cloud, who were supposed to be
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 167
half men and half horses, because like the gauchos
and pampas of South America, they passed their
lives on their steeds. In the greater number of the
metopes, in which the struggle is between one Cen-
taur and one Athenian, the Athenians are victorious,
in accordance with the traditions of the heroic ages
of Athens. In some few the Centaurs have the
victory, and in others again it is still doubtful.
It is believed that the whole series of the me-
topes is the work of Alcamenes, the beloved disciple
of Pheidias, because, according to Pausanias, he
placed Centaurs in the pediment of the temple of
Olympus. As they were more exposed to destruc-
tion, on account of their form, than the frieze, the
metopes of the Parthenon are much more mutilated
and disfigured ; and it should be borne in mind, in
looking at them, that they were not, like the frieze,
placed opposite to and within easy range of the
spectator, but along the top of the temple, to be
looked at from below.
Having two entrances, the Parthenon had two
facades, and therefore two pediments in the tri-
angular tympanums. The facades turning towards
the east and west, as was customary in Grecian
temples, have been named after the cardinal
points opposite to them. The eastern pediment
represents the Birth of Pallas, when she sprung
1G8 ORECIAN SCULPTURE.
fully armed from the brain of Zeus, under the
hatchet of Vulcan. The western pediment repre-
sented the Dispute of Poseidon and Pallas for the
honour of giving name to the native city of
Cecrops.* They agreed that the producer of the
most useful invention should be the victor. Po-
seidon formed a horse, and Pallas caused an olive-
tree to spring up ; the latter, being the emblem
of peace, Athene won the prize. Both subjects
stood out from a red ground like the metopes, and
the artist so arranged them that each statue had
its due share of light and shade every hour of the
day. I say the pediments represented, not repre-
* " You then come to the temple called the Parthenon. The his-
tory of the birth of Minerva fills one pediment, and her dispute with
Neptune about Attica, the other." (Pausanias, Attica, chap, xxiv.)
With the exception of a few details apropos of the fable of the
Griffins and Arimaspi, this is all that the artist rhetorician of the
second century of Rome tells us of the Parthenon. Neither
^heidias, Ictinus, nor Callicrates, are even mentioned. Such coldness
and indifference is astonishing. A few lines further on, Pausanias
adds: "Near the temple is a bronze statue of Apollo Pa.nopos
(from iTapvoi\/, a locust), said to be the work of Pheidias. It is sur-
named Parnopos, because Apollo promised to deliver the country
from the locusts which were wasting it. We know that he kept his
word, but we do not know by what means. I have seen the locusts
destroyed on Mount Sipylus three times, and each time in a different
manner. The first were carried away by a violent w ii;d, the second
were destroyed by heavy rain, and the third perished from cold.
All this happened in my day." This is the way in which the
celebrated traveller of Caesarea, the great critic of ancient times,
judged works of art and spoke of a statue by Pheidias !
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 169
sent, for alas ! we only know from history and
conjectures what were the subjects and who were
the personages who figured in th ^m. The most
masterly scholarship would fail to construct one
distinct scene from the ruins which were collected
from the temple and are exhibited in London.
Not only are the remaining figures mere fragments,
but many, and those the chief, have entirely dis-
appeared in the battles, the assaults, the ravages, of
which the city of Pallas was so often the theatre
and the victim. We will tiy and give some idea
of the magnitude of these irreparable losses.
I do not know the exact difference between the
old Athenian and the modern English foot mea-
sure ; but it is supposed that the facade of the old
Hecatoinpedon, or at least of the tympanum of the
pediments, being exactly one hundred English feet
long, might have been so called before the age of
Pericles. Well, then, to confine myself to the eastern
pediment {the Birth of Pallas), there remain, out
of all the figures which composed it, but five frag-
ments of the left angle, in length thirty-three feet,
and four fragments of the right angle, in length
twenty-seven feet. A most careful search has been
made, but not a vestige has been discovered of all
that filled the forty feet in the middle ; that is to
say, the principal scene. Zeus, surrounded by
170 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
the great gods, is altogether broken, destroyed,
annihilated ! Art, like Rachel in the Scriptures,
must weep for ever, for she too has lost her beloved
children, her noblest productions ; she too can
never be comforted. Et noluit consolari* Let us now
return to the fragments which remain to us, mere
fragments of almost shapeless stone, yet more pre-
cious in spite of their terribly mutilated condition
than the richest diamonds of Golconda. According
to Otfried Muller, who was followed by M. M. Beul^
and Menard, the subject of the eastern pediment
is taken from a hymn of Homer, in which the
* When the Marquis of Nointel was sent as ambassador to
Constantinople, in 1674, he had good drawings made by Carrey,
the pupil of Lebrun, of the frieze, the metopes, and the two
pediments, and sent tliem to Paris to be carefully engraved. The
building was already much injured but still complete. It was at
the attack of the Venetians, under Morosini, in 1687, that the
Parthenon suffered most. Having heard that the Turks concealed
their war material in the temple of Minerva, the Venetian general
had bombs thrown into it, and on the night of the 26th of September,
a terrible explosion burst open the cella, and cut the Parthenon in
two. When, rather later, Morosini was compelled to abandon his
enterprise, he wished to carry off the richest trophies to Venice.
But the removal of the principal statues was so hastily and
awkwardly effected, that they were thrown to the earth and broken
to pieces. (M. Leon de Laborde, "Athens in the fifteenth,
sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.")
It was then at the end of the learned and polished seventeenth
century, in the middle of the reign of Louis XIV., fourteen years
after the death of Moliere, and seven years before the birth of
Voltaire, that this supreme deed of barbarism was perpetrated, the
destruction of the central figures of both pediments of the Parthenon !
GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
171
sovereign of gods and men is introduced presenting
his daughter to the other divinities. " All the
immortals were struck with admiration when the
ardent goddess flung herself before her divine sire,
with the aegis in his hand. The great Olympus
trembled beneath the pointed lance of the warrior
Fig- 37- — Heads of Horses. (From the Parthenon.)
maiden with the piercing glance ; the earth re-
sounded far and wide ; the sea held back her
waves ; the purple billows quivered ; the brilliant
son of Hyperion reined in his swift steeds for a
time, * * * and the wise Zeus rejoiced." As we
have before stated, there remain nine fragments of
this pediment, five from the left side and four from
the right. Of the left beginning at the extreme
172 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
point of the angle, we find first •. the head of
Hyperion (Hehos, the sun) leaving the sea in the
early morning, his arms raised from the water
holding the reins of his chargers ; then two heads
of the horses of the sun, rising from the waves ;
then Theseus, the Athenian hero, half-recumbent
Fig. 38.^ — Theseus. (From the Parthenon.)
on a rock, covered with the skin of a lion, and
imitating the attitude of Hercules ; then a group
of two goddesses on low seats, which are alike in
their construction. They are supposed to be Per-
sephone and Demeter ; one of them leans her head
on the shoulder of the other, that her figure may
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 173
be lower. Then rising gradually higher, to suit the
height of the tympanum, a statue of Iris, the
messenger of the gods, who, with her veil inflated
by the wind, appears in haste to execute her
mission of communicating to the world the Intel-
ligence of the birth of Athena. Passing over the
deplorable break of forty feet in the centre, we find
successively, in the right angle beginning at the
highest point : the torso of a statue supposed
to be a winged Victory, the wings of which were
doubtless of bronze, for the holes on the shoulders
in which they were fastened to the marble may
still be seen ; then in two fragments, the famous
group called the three Farces; one by herself is
seated, with her feet tucked under her seat, like
a spinner at a distaff; the other two, connected,
repose on a Thalamos, onis resting against the
bosom of the other, so as to suit the slope of the
angle, like Ceres and Proserpine on the opposite
side ; lastly, the head of one of the horses belong-
ing to the chariot of Selene (night), which is plung-
ing into the ocean at the extreme end of the angle,
and corresponds with the car of Hyperion on the
left. I do not know if the marvellous group of
three women really represents the three Parcse.
If so, it will justify my remark in speaking of the
picture of the Fates, by Michael Angelo, that the
174 OB E CI AN SCULPTURE.
Greeks, in their excessive love of the beautiful,
made the Parcce, and even the Furies, not old and
hideous witches, like the moderns, but beautiful
and powerful matrons, although not quite so
charming as the young virgins who represented
the Graces.
The subject of the western pediment was the
dispute of Poseidon and Pallas.* With the ex-
ception of the first figure on the left, its remains
are in a still worse condition of ruin and mutilation
than those of the opposite pediment. Nothing is
preserved but a shapeless mass of fragments, the
* Three different traditions of this dispute have come down to
us. According to Herodotus and Pausanias, Neptune caused a
spring of salt water to spring from the Acropolis, and Minerva made
an olive-tree grow up. According to others — and this is the more
generally received version — Neptune and Minerva, the one with a
blow from a trident, the other from a spear, produced a horse and
an olive-tree from the earth. A third story relates that Neptune
created a wild horse, and Minerva tamed it by putting on the bit.
This is why the latter was called Hippia, and to her favourite
Erectheus was attributed the honour of having taught men the use
of the bridle and reins. It must be acknowledged that the last
subject is better suited than the other two to the picturesque
arrangement of the groups of a pediment, and Carrey's drawing
authorizes the belief that Pheidias adopted it. "The meaning,"
says M. Louis de Ronchaud, "is the same as that of the tradition
of the birth of the olive. The defeat of brute force by intelligent
energy is more strikingly typified than in the myth quoted by
Herodotus, because Minerva, after having subjected the force created
in opposition to her, to her laws, made it subservient to her designs.
Blind impetuosity is converted into regulated activity under the
guidance of wisdom."
GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
175
meaning of which we could not even guess without
the aid of history. At the extreme end of the left
angle, resting like a river god upon his urn, is the
figure of Ilyssus, a small stream which took its rise
in Mount Hymettus, and ran down to the sea by
way of the plain south of Athens. Pausanias says
Fig. 39.— The Parcce. (From the Parthenon.)
that it was dedicated to the Muses. This admirable
statue, doubtless, owed the good fortune of being
better preserved than any other of the Parthenon
to its well-sheltered position. Had Michael Angelo
known it, he would doubtless have called it, as well
as the Torso of the Belvedere, his master in sculp-
ture, and he would have felt its outlines with loving
176 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
hands in his extreme old age. After this immense
figure of Ilyssus, comes the colossal torso of a
man called Cecrops, the founder of Athens. Then
some superior fragments, also of colossal propor-
tions, of a head of Pallas, originally wearing a
bronze helmet, and with eyes of coloured stone ; then
a fragment of the body of the same Pallas, a part
of the chest covered with the aegis, that is the head
of Medusa, with the serpents in bronze ; then a
fragment of the torso of Neptune (Poseidon) "of
the majestic chest." Then the torso of Nike
Apteros, or Victory without Wings, \\\io was thus
represented by the Athenians to indicate that they
held her in perpetuity, and she could never desert
them. This faithful Victory drew the car on which
Minerva was to ascend to Heaven, after her victory
over Neptune. Lastly, at the right angle of the
pediment, a small fragment of a group of Latona
and her Children.
When Marie Joseph Chenier said of the inspired
blind poet of Chios :
Brisant des potentats la couronne ephemere,
Trois mille ans ont passe sur la cendre d'Homere,
Et, depuis trois mille ans, Homere respecte
Est jeune encor de gloire et d'immortalite ;
he had before his mind two Homeric poems which
had been preserved without alteration, first in the
GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
Ill
memory of men, then in frail writing, and lastly
in imperishable printing. The arts are not so
fortunate as letters ; for, inasmuch as their works
cannot be multiplied by copies, and a single
specimen of course occupies but one spot in the
world, neither the canvas of the painter, the
marble of the sculptor, nor the pillars and vaults
Fig. 40. — Torso.
of architecture, can resist the destructive action of
time as well as printed or written matter. The
Iliad still remains complete, and the less aged Par-
thenon is in ruins. Whilst the glory of Homer rests
on the imperishable foundation of his works,
ruthless time and sacrilegious men have left to
Pheidias nothing but pitiable remains, of which we
may say, as of the mutilated body of Hippolytus :
Triste objet oil des Dieux triomphe la colere,
Et que meconnaitrait I'ceil meme de son pere.
N
178 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
\^\xt these relics are so beautiful, so wonderful, so
divine ; the feeblest imagination can so readily re-
combine and complete them ; they address the soul
in language so lofty and profound ; they awaken
such insatiable curiosity, such fervent admiration ;
they justify so entirely the verdict of Cicero on
their author — Menti insidebat idea pulchritudinis —
that although centuries have not spared him,
Pheidias, Hke Homer,
Est jeune encor de gloire et d'immortalite.
I could not speak in more measured terms
of the marbles of the Parthenon. It would be
culpable neglect of duty to do so. I should feel
that I was as sacrilegious as their destroyers. But
I must remind the visitor to the British Museum,
when he makes his sacred pilgrimage round the
Elio-n room, of one or two facts, viz. : the mutilated
metopes are not now seen from the same point of
view as when they occupied the entablature of the
colonnade ; the frieze, which is in parts better pre-
served than the metopes, does not present the same
aspect in the inside of a room as it did in the
pronaos of the temple, round the outside of the
cella; and lastly, that there remain fragments only
of the lateral figures of either pediment ; that they
were the least important in the groups, and that the
centre or principal part is absolutely wanting in
GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 179
both facades. If these incomplete fragments,
these accessory portions, be so fervently admired,
so passionately worshipped, wliat would be felt
before the figures of the great gods of the centre,
before the imposing harmony of the complete
pediments, " in which," says M. Menard, " each per-
fect detail is blended in the general excellence, like
individual free will in a Grecian city, like the eternal
laws, which are gods, in the concert of the uni-
verse ?"
To these remarks I must add another. The
marbles of the Parthenon belong to that supreme
moment in the history of the arts of a polished
nation, when with the innocence and purity of the
early ages were combined the science, the grace, and
the force of the mature epoch, as yet without any
intermixture of the faults of the decadence. For
the arts of Greece, this exceptional moment was
the age of Pericles. Pheidias is the connecting link,
he lived at the time of the assimilation. Something
of the same kind would have occurred had Raphael
more nearly resembled Giotto ; Michael Angelo,
Nicolas of Pisa ; Palladio, the Gothic architects ; the
music of Mozart, the chorales of Luther ; in a word,
had masterpieces always retained more of the spirit
of early efforts. In this sense the sculptures of
Pheidias appear to me more perfect even than the
180 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.
pictures of Raphael, the statues of Michael Angelo,
the monuments of Palladio, or the operas of Mozart.
This is why we may call them the finest works of
art ever produced by human genius. " To believe
it possible to surpass them," says Montesquieu, will
always be not to know them."
It cannot be denied that the Greeks of the
present day, seeing the ancient temple of their
Acropolis despoiled of all its ornaments, have a
right to curse the depredators. But when it is
remembered how often these works have been ill-
treated, how totally the chief statues have been
destroyed, how much the others have been muti-
lated, and the danger the latter were in of being
destroyed in their turn ; when they consider that
these precious relics of art are now in a place of
safety, in the centre of artistic Europe ; the wish,
and almost the right to reproach the English for
dismantling their temple must pass away. And if
a regret has marred the intense pleasure of my
own admiration in my many and reverent visits to
the marbles of Pheidias, it is that the thief who stole
them was not a Frenchman, and that the receiving
house which took them in was not the Museum of
Paris.
181
CHAPTER V.
ROMAN SCULPTURE.
OUR remarks in a former work on Roman paint-
ing apply equally to sculpture. Conquered
and subdued, reduced to the condition of a mere
province of the Republic, and subsequently of the
Empire, Greece was nevertheless the instructress
of Rome. It was her sons who introduced all the
arts and cultivated them in Rome. We have
already noticed that the famous groups of the
Laocoon and the Toi'o Farnese, although produced
after the Roman conquest, were executed by Greeks
and in Greece. Cicero, Pliny, Quintilian, Pausanias,
have transmitted to us the names of all the great
sculptors of Hellas ; they do not mention a single
native of Rome. The Romans borrowed theii
subjects, and in arts as in letters, and in everything
else, they always cared more for the real than the
ideal, they were ever nearer earth than heaven.
The sculptures by native artists, or those by Greeks
182 ROMAN SCULPTURE.
who were reduced to the positions of artisans in
Rome, were but images of their deified Caesars
and their Hbertine wives, or of the favourites of the
imperial palace. Industry, usurping the place of
art, manufactured statues of emperors and em-
presses before they were needed, and the heads
were added according to the requirements of dif-
ferent reigns. Statues iconicce of this kind were
far more numerous in Rome than in Greece. The
same kind of public homage rendered to the family
of the reigning emperor in the capital of the world,
was accorded in the provinces to the proconsuls,
the prefects, and the powerful patrician families who
held whole towns under their control. The nine
statues of the Balbus family, found in the theatre of
Herculaneum, are a proof of this. We will content
ourselves with noticing those grand specimens of
the Roman era contained in different collections
of works of art, which seem to us to merit attention.
We begin in Italy, at Florence.
The museum degV Uffizi possesses a collection
called that of the Roman emperors, which is
generally considered the most complete in the
world. In it there are, in fact, some very rare busts,
such as those of Caligula and of Otho. Including
men, women, and children, there are sixty-nine ;
from Pompey (who would doubtless be rather
ROMAN SCULPTURE.
183
surprised at being included amongst the emperors)
and Caesar, who should properly begin the series,
Fig. 41. — Agrippina of Gernianicus. (Rome.)
to Constantine. and even Quintilius, who reigned
but twenty davs. The Roman statues are less
184 ROMAN SCULPTURE.
numerous : we can only quote one Augustus ha-
ranguing the people, one Trajan, and one Hadrian.
At Rome we must look for relics of ancient
national art in the Capitol, not in the Vatican.
The modern Romans, who have partly demolished
the Colosseum, who have called the Forum the
Cattle Market (Campo Vaccina ), and planted arti-
chokes on the Tarpeian Rock, have not even
respected the ancient name of Capitol, which should
for ever have designated the fortress of the
Eternal City. They have converted it into a
strange word, Campidoglio, which signifies rather
a field of colza, a field of oil, than the citadel of
rising Rome, which became the temple where
victorious Roman generals sung the Te Deum, in
their imposing triumphal ceremonies. Ascending to
the new Capitol by the double staircase of Michael
Angelo, we pass between the two black Egyptian
lions, the colossal statues of Castor and Pollux,
called the Trophies of Marius, and reverently
bowing before the bronze equestrian statue of
Marcus Aurelius, on the noble head of which the
ancient gilding is still visible, we enter the Museum.
In it there is another " room of Emperors," con-
taining an Agrippina, which is a fair type of the
Roman ladies of the age ; an Antinoiis, the finest
of all the statues of Hadrian's devoted friend ; and a
ROMAN SCULPTURE.
185
Julius Ccssar, placed under the portico of the palace.
The last-named is said to be the only authentic
portrait of the founder of the empire which the
Fig. 42.— Antinoiis. (Rome.)
Papal city has preserved. The proverb which
says " a saint is at home in his shrine," would
apply to Caesar in the Capitol, near to a fine statue
186 ROMAN SCULPTURE.
of Triumphant Rome, and seated between two
captive kings, not far from the celebrated Wolff,
venerated by the ancient Romans, and immortalised
b^ Cicero in his Catiline Orations, and in his poem
on the Consulate.
At Naples we find the nine statues of the Balbus
family already alluded to — the father, mother, son,
and three daughters — found together in the theatre
of Herculaneum, over which town this family
exercised a protectorate. Two of them, the
equestrian statues of Marcus Nonius Balbus and of
his son, are very fine and very curious. The horses
are ambling, that is to say, they raise both legs on
one side in trotting — a strange attitude, not repre-
sented, to my knowledge, in any other ancient or
modern equestrian statue. The head of the
younger Balbus was broken to pieces by a
French cannon ball, when it was in the Palace
of the Portici, in 1799, and a new head was
made from a cast of the fragments. The best
of the other statues of the same family are those
of Balbus the father, and of Ciria his wife, who is
represented as Polymnia. We notice them for
several reasons : in the first place, the execution
of most of them is good ; secondly, their discovery
together was curious ; and lastly, their arrange-
ment in the theatre as tutelary divinities of a con-
SOMAN SCULPTURE. 187
siderable town, proves the high position occupied
in those days by the patrician famihes, who held
whole populations in fief.
The series of Roman emperors in the Louvre
is not so complete as that in the UJzsi at Florence ;
but the French collection is very rich, and is
increased by statues of many illustrious personages
who did not occupy the throne. The room con-
taining their iconiccs, or portraits, is in a manner
presided over by two principal statues, which have
attained this distinction by their superior beauty
and the imposing titles they bear. One of them
is an Aicgiistiis, the other a Marcus Aurelius.
Julius Caesar, whose name became the title of the
head of the state as long as the Roman Empire
lasted, and afterwards passed to that of Germany
(Kaiser), ought to be the chief of all these masters
of the world ; but the only statue of Caesar in the
Louvre is not merely of doubtful authenticity, but
also of no artistic value whatever. His immediate
successor has therefore been preferred to him.
This really fine statue of Augustus as an orator on
foot, was found near to Velletri (Velitrae), the birth-
place of the conqueror of Actium. He seems to be
proudly saying, " I found Rome a city of bricks
and leave it a city of marble ;" which would not,
however, justify the crimes which marked his
188 ROMAN SCULPTURE.
accession to supreme power. Had not the name of
the third Caesar, Tiberius, been disgraced by blood-
shed and debauchery, and branded by Tacitus, his
statue might have claimed first rank. It was found
at Capri {Caprea), the favourite residence of this
gloomy tyrant, who is represented holding the
small sceptre called scipio (staff), and it may be
considered one of the finest works of the Imperial
epoch. It gives a perfect specimen of the toga,
the robe of which the Romans were so proud, and
on account oi which they were called by foreigners
gens togata ; the use of which was discontinued
soon after the age of Augustus, in spite of the edicts
of the emperors.
Marcus Aurelius was totally different from
Tiberius. He justified Plato's dictum : " Men will
never be happy unless they are governed by
philosophers." He was a royal philosopher, he was
Socrates crowned. The second place of honour is
therefore rightly given to one of his statues : he
wears the military costume, t\\Q paludamentiim and
the cuirass of ornamented leather, fitting to the
shape, and leaving parts of the body bare, as in the
images of heroes and gods. This second statue
was probably not raised until after the death of
M. Aurelius, when the excesses of his successor
had increased the regret of the world for his loss.
ROMAN SCULPTURE. 189
In both, Marcus Aurelius wears the beard, which
was again introduced by the family of Antoninus,
after being discontinued for four centuries, from
the time of the old Scipio (Barbatus), grandfather
of the first Africanus.
Amongst the other imperial statues we will
notice : a Livia, the wife of Augustus, reprebented
as Ceres, whose tunic is as worthy of study as the
toga of Tiberius ; a Julia, daughter of Augustus ;
and, like her mother-in-law, dressed as Ceres
(the left hand of this infamous woman, who was
successively the wife of Marcellus, Agrippa, and
Tiberius, has fortunately been preserved, an excep-
tional circumstance, as the hands and often the
arms of most antique statues have been restored) ;
a Caligula, or rather a head of Caligula, on a
strange body, for the feet are without the simple
leather boots (caligae) which that emperor wore
from his infancy, in the camp of his father, Ger-
m aniens, and from which he obtained his surname
(this head is valuable on account of its rarity, for
it is well-known that the sword of Chaereas had
scarcely freed the earth from the furious madman
who wished that " the Roman people had but
one head, to be struck off at a blow," when that
people, who always survived their masters, threw
down and destroyed all the images of the tyrant) ;
190 ROMAN SCULPTURE.
a Victorious Nero, triumphant, not over the conspi-
racy of Piso, or that of Vindex, but in chariot
races, or in trials of skill on the cithara (y^iOapa)
or on the flute. He wears the heroic costume,
that is, nudity, and on his head rests the diadem,
not of a king, but of a victorious athlete. Who
would recognise in this beautiful and tender figure
of the son of Agrippina, the assassin of his mother,
his brother, his wife, of Seneca, Lucan, and many
others, the incendiary of Rome, and the torturer
of the Christians ? A Ti/us, doubtless sculptured
when he returned from the sack of Jerusalem before
he became the peaceful and benevolent prince who
was called delici<2 generis huniani. He is, in fact,
in the attitude of a general addressing the military
adlocutio to his troops. His armour is remarkable
for the ocrecB or greaves (the Kv^yahe'^ of the Greeks),
which covered the leg from the ankle to the knee,
and also for the short heavy sword hanging
from a belt. A Trajan, that great and noble
emperor, praised by Pliny the younger and
by Montesquieu seventeen centuries after his
reign, the conqueror of the Dacai, and the Par-
thians ; he wears an Isis on his breastplate instead
of the Medusa, and his feet are bare, as was his
custom in war. Lastly, a Pupienus (or Maximus),
almost nude, as required in the so-called heroic
ROMAN SCULPTURE. 191
costume. This last statue has an interest of its
own, for we may say that after the death of
Pupienus, who was massacred in 236 by the
Praetorian guard, the ancients did not produce a
single work of art truly worthy of the name.
Amongst the iconic statues, not imperial, we
will name : a Tiridates, to whom Nero gave the
kinsrdom of Armenia, and whom he received at
Rome with oriental magnificence. This figure is
remarkable for its Asiatic costume, the purple
candys on the white tunic, the pantaloons called
atiaxyrides, and the samphera, or sword of the
Parthians. Two figures of Antinous. We know
that Hadrian's beautiful favourite lost his life in
saving his master from drowning in the Nile. The
emperor was so inconsolable for his loss that he
made him a god. "That extra god," says
Chateaubriand, " whom he bequeathed to the
Romans, worthy recipients of the gift." It was
just at the time when Roman artists (or perhaps
we should say those of Roman Greece), in their
endeavour to infuse new life into enervated sculpture,
sought for models in ancient Greece, Etruria, and
even Egypt. The beautiful youth of Bithynia
became their constant model ; they converted him
into a new Apollo, a new type of manly beauty.
Of the two statues in the Louvre, one represents
102 JiOMAN SCULPTURE.
him as Hercules, but probably the head only is
that of Antinous, and the body that of Commodus ;
the other, as Aristseus, the Thessalian hero, became
the god of bees, of flocks, and of olives. In the
latter, which is perfectly well preserved, Antinous
wears the costume of a shepherd — the petasiis, or
straw hat, the half tunic which leaves the right arm
free, and the leather boots called perones.
Amongst the Roman busts w^e will briefly name
in chronological order : an Agrippa, an excellent
portrait of the real conqueror of Actium. A Donii-
tiiis Corbido, whom Nero never forgave for intro-
ducing' the honour and virtue of Rome into the
camp, thereby condemning the crimes of the
Caesars. A Nero, in which this last offshoot of the
hateful race of Augustus is represented in a sideral
crown with eight rays. A Domitian, whose por-
traits are as rare as those of Caligula, for the
senate proscribed even his memory. A colossal
Antinous, as Osiris, who once had the lotus, the
sacred plant of Egypt, on his head, precious stones
in his eyelids, and gilt bronze draperies on his
shoulders. A Lucius Vcrus, a delicate and pleasing
portrait of the adopted brother of Marcus Aurelius,
of that effeminate type o{ Koimni petits-inaitres, who
powdered their hair and beard with gold dust.
A Septimus Severus. wearing the ancient mantle
ROMAN SCULPTURE. 193
of heavy stuff, called Iczna by the Romans, and
')(KaLva or yXoevrj by the Greeks. It is mentioned
by Homer, and by a return to ancient fashions,
it finally superseded the toga. A Caracalla and
a Geta, the brothers who shared the imperial throne
for a short time, until one stabbed the other. We
recognise Caracalla not only by his ferocious expres-
sion, but also by the inclination of his head tc)
the left, in imitation of Alexander the Great. A.
Plautilla, the wife of this insane monster. A
Matidia, the amiable and virtuous niece of Trajan.
A Faustina, mother of the first Antoninus ; n
younger Faustina, the lascivious wife of Marcu;>
Aurelius, give instances of the strange head-
dresses adopted by Roman ladies in lieu of the
simple braids of hair which the Greek ladies bound
so tastily with coloured ribbons. The former wore
large ugly wigs called casque {galerus ov galericuium),
of every fantastic, absurd, and inconceivable shape,
which were usually made of red hair imported from
Germania. There are some bust portraits of this
period, which, for greater accuracy, have the wig
of coloured stone, made to take off and on, so that
it could be changed at will.
Lastly, of the bas-reliefs made at Rome, and
which were nearly all external ornaments of sarco-
phagi, we will select for notice : two of those
o
194 B OMAN SCULP TUBE.
solemn sacrifices which were offered up every five
years in each quarter of the Eternal City, called
siiovetaurilia, because the magistrate ordered the
victimarii to immolate a pig {sus), a sheep {pvis), and
a bull {tauriis). The larger and coarser one better
illustrates all the details of the sacrifice, and the
smaller is of more delicate execution ; one will
delight antiquaries, the other artists. A Conclamatio,
?. funeral ceremony, in which the dead are loudly
called to the sound of warlike instruments, to
ascertain if life be really extinct. In this bas-reliet
W't see the straight trumpet of the Roman infantry
(the tuba), and the curved trumpet of the cavalry
(the litims). The Prcstorian soldiers, to whom an
adlocutio is perhaps being addressed. In this grand
bas-relief we may profitably study the entire
costume of Roman soldiers ; the long, oval shield,
the breastplate fitting to the chest, the short, broad,
and heavy swords, which inflicted such terrible
blows in a hand-to-hand conflict. The centurion
has a winged thunderbolt on his shield, as a token
that he belonged to the famous twelfth legion,
called legio fidminans.
With regard to these iconic statues, both Greek
and Roman, I may perhaps be allowed to make
one closing remark applicable to the works of our
own day. In almost all these marble portraits
ROMAN SCULPTURE. 195
the pupils of the eyes are represented, sometimes
even by enamels. Remembering this, and also that
Donatello, Michael Angelo, and the great artists
of their age added pupils to the eyes of their statues,
I would no longer accept the excuse of modern
sculptors, who omit this most essential part of the
human head, even in their portraits, urging the
interests of the honour of art, and the example of
the ancients ! On the contrary, I could wish them
to imitate the ancients in this particular, and their
contemporary, Houdon, who, following Coysevox,
the Constou, Girardon, and Pigalle, made two
marble portraits of Voltaire and Moliere, which are
admirable because he succeeded in giving expres-
sion to the eyes, without which there can be neither
life nor resemblance.
196
BOOK II.
MODERN SCULPTURE.
IN the happy age called the reign of the Anto-
nines, from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius, and
especially under Hadrian, surnamed reparator
orbis, a great and noble effort of renaissance
was made in every branch of art. The nu-
merous statues of Antinous, together with the
images of the Csesars, and the bas-reliefs of
the Trajan column, suffice to show us that the
sculptors of Imperial Rome were able, at this
time, to contest the palm with those of Republican
Greece. Before the era of the Antonines, however,
art had declined, and after it all true culture was
entirely abandoned. When Rome had enriched
herself with the spoils of the world, her wealth, as
we have before observed, vitiated her taste, and
she learned to care more for riches than for beauty,
for the precious metals than for the ordinary
materials of the arts. Pompey exhibited his
portrait made in pearls, and Nero conceived the
MODERN SCULPTURE. 197
idea of gilding the bronze Alexander of Lysippus,
after having a picture painted of himself one
hundred and twenty feet high, which Pliny called
insanium in pictura. We have also noticed that the
statue of the Emperor Pupienus, killed in a revolt
in 236, is the last work of antiquity — that is to say,
executed before the triumph of Christianity — to be
found in the museums of Europe.
When Constantine transferred the seat of the
new empire to Byzantium, he took with him many
of the objects of art which had embellished Rome.
We know, for instance, that he had four hundred
and twenty-seven statues placed in the temple of
St. Sophia alone. The gods and heroes of
paganism were adapted to suit the requirements of
the new religion, in the same manner that basilicas
and praetorian justice halls were transformed into
chuches. But Constantine was not accompanied
by artists capable of producing statues of equal
merit, although he ordered images of Jesus, Mary,
and the apostles. It was the material, not the
execution of these statues, which was valued.
When Anastasius enumerates the gifts presented to
the churches by Constantine, he mentions eighteen
statues in solid silver, namely : " The Savioui
seated, weighing one hundred and twenty pounds ;
the twelve apostles, ninety pounds each ; four
198 MODERN SCULPTURE.
angels of one hundred and twenty pounds weight
each, with eyes made of precious stones," etc. A
single fact is enough to prove to what an extent
the horrible taste for the fantastic and impossible
was carried at this time. Constantine's historians
relate that he also ordered a group which combined
the portraits of his three sons, Constantine, Con-
stantius, and Constans. This group, in porphyry,
had three bodies, six arms, and six legs, but only
one head, which alternately gave the likeness of
each of the three brothers, according to the point
of view of the spectator. The first Christians had
none of the enlightened taste and enthusiasm for
the fine arts of the polytheists ; their ignorance and
prejudice were alike profound. When the Apostle
Paul visited Athens (about A.D. 50) it still pos-
sessed almost all its masterpieces of ancient times ;
the Acropolis was still an unrivalled museum; "but
all these wonders," says M. E. Renan, " affected the
apostle little ; he saw the most perfect things thai
ever existed, that ever will exist, . . . and he was
unmoved ; he did not tremble. The prejudices of
the iconoclast Jew blinded him, and rendered him
insensible to the beauties of plastic art ; he took
these incomparable images for idols. . . . Ah, fair
and chaste images, true gods, true goddesses,
tremble before him who will raise the hammer
MODERN SGULFTUBK 199
against you. The fatal word is pronounced, you
are idols ; the error of this ill-favoured Jew (ce
laid petit Juif) will be your death warrant." At
Athens Paul saw only the altar to the " Unknown
God," and of his own authority he conferred it
upon the God of the Jews, the only God, the
unnamed God.
It was indeed a death warrant pronounced by a
stupid and lamentable hatred. After the pagan
reaction of Julian, surnamed the Apostate, the
Christians in blind fury set to work to destroy
all the vestiges of antiquity, all the objects of
art. " Burning to annihilate all that could recall
paganism, the Christians," says Vasari, " destroyed
the marvellous statues, sculptures, paintings, even
the images of great men which adorned the public
buildings." Rome, Athens, and Constantinople
alone were able to preserve a few relics of antiquity
Everywhere else pagan works were thrown under
the hammer, the wheels of chariots, or into burning
furnaces ; and such was the popular fury, that it
was necessary, when antique statues were to be
removed from one capital to another, to bind them
like criminals, and give out that they were going to
be exposed to the ridicule of the faithful in the
places of execution. The writings of the fathers,
and the sermons of the bishops, excited such
20 MODERN SCULP TURK
violent prejudices, that the first Christian emperors
were compelled to issue several edicts for the
destruction of idols, and this destruction was so
general and complete, that when Honorius renewed
the order that they should be broken, for the
fourth time, he added : " If any still remain, si qua
etiani Jimtc in templis fanisqiie consistunt!'
Need I say more of the outrages of the icono-
clasts ? need I repeat that these sectarians, in the
East at least, succeeded in destroying all ancient
sculptures, and that, interpreting the sacred text
literally, they prevented any new cultivation of the
art ? When jewellery was preferred to everything
else, and when painting was confined to enamels,
gems, and chasings on gold or silver, sculpture
produced nothing but miniature figures in one
metal, or in a combination of different metals. The
only architectural art of the Lower Empire was the
mosaic.
We must therefore return to the west for the
revival of sculpture and the renaissance of all the
arts.
901
CHAPTER I.
ITALIAN SCULPTURE.
WE cannot pause to notice the crude pro-
ductions of the first Christian age in Italy ;
they are not even essays in art. When beauty was
proscribed as fatal and culpable, when the Fathers
said, with Minucius Felix, "impure spirits are
hidden in statues," what use could art make of
stone and marble ? In the ruins of some of the
earliest churches we find thick and clumsy blocks,
without shape or expression, supposed to repre-
sent a god or a saint, reminding us of the
primitive divinities of Greece before the time of
Daedalus ; or chimerical monsters forming the
gargoyles of the roofs of churches, disguised under
the name of devils ; that is all. In France and
Germany alone we find the beginnings of a national
art at this epoch. In Italy, then, we will pass with
one hucfe stride over the entire interval between
the Antonines and the Renaissance, and begin our
work with the Middle Age.
202 ITALIAN SCULPTURE.
It was not at Rome, but in ancient Etruria, in
republican Tuscany, that the revival of the arts
beean, and the first result was the reform of
sculpture. The chief honour of this reform belongs
to Nicola of Pisa, who was the Giotto of statuary.
He was the first to study the bas-reliefs repre-
senting a chase of Hippolytus or of Meleager, on
the sarcophagus containing the body of Beatrice,
mother of the famous Countess Matilda. He
mastered the style of the ancients, and succeeded
in imicating it in the pulpits of Siena and Pisa,
a.id later in the tomb of St. Dominic at Bologna.
He was called Nicola deW nrna, because, in 123 1,
he made the beautiful urn of the founder of the
Inquisition. What a difference between the works
of this first reformer of art and the rough bas-reliefs
produced less than half a century earlier by a
certain Anselm — called, however, Dcedaliis alter —
to commemorate the retaking of Milan from
Frederic Barbarossa ! After Nicola of Pisa come,
successively, his son Giovanni ; his pupil Arnolfo ;
the brothers Agostino and Agr.olo of Sienna ; then
Andrea of Pisa ; Andrea Orcagna, a universal
artist, a Michael Angelo anticipated ;* and lastly,
Ghiberti, Donatello, Delia Robbia, and Sansjvino,
all of Florence.
* He signed his sculptures, Fece Andi-ea di Cione, pittore; and
his paintings, Fece An Irea di Cione, scultore.
ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 203
Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378 — 1455) is chiefly known
as tlie author of the bronze gates of the Baptistery
of Florence. He was not more than twenty years
old when the great work ordered by the Commune
was awarded to him, with the approbation even of
his rival competitors Brunelleschi and Donatello.*
In his biography of Ghiberti, Vasari describes in
detail the sixty subjects of the bas-reliefs of the
three gates, at which Ghiberti worked as sculptor,
chaser, and founder, for forty years of his life.
Although the plans and groups of these bas-reliefs
may with justice be called too complicated, Michael
Angelo said that the gates of the Baptistery were
worthy to be those of Paradise. " This master-
piece," adds Vasari, " is perfect in every part, and
is the finest in the world."
Donatello, or Donato (1383 — 1466), who was an
orphan, educated by charity, succeeded equally
well with full relief, high, low, and very low relief,
and has left his best works to his country. To the
carpenter's guild, a marble St. Mark; to the Piazza
del Palazzo Vecchio, a bronze Judith; to the Uffizi
Gallery, an Elfin Dance, a David, conqueror of
Goliath, and a St. John the Baptist, emaciated by
* So says Vasari, but as Donatello was five years younger than
Ghiberti, it is probable that the historian of painters and sculptors
is wrong in placing him amongst the CQmpetitors.
204 ITALIAN SCULPTUBK.
fasting. This last work is a marvellous repre-
sentation of the inspired forerunner, of the zealous
locust eater; it is one of the productions of that
stern and conscientious Donatello, who, in the
midst of the fetes given at Padua in his honour,
could write down the profound thought: "If I
remained here, where everyone flatters me, I should
soon forget what I know ; but in my own country
criticism will keep me vigilant and compel me to ad-
vance." Connoisseurs compare this jfohn the Baptist
to the St. George of the Or-Saii-MicJiele at Florence
alone, and the Fra Bardiiccio Cherichini, in one of
the niches of the Campanile, is the only sculpture
preferred to it. The last named, commonly called
lo Zuccone {t\\Q bald-head), was Donatello's favourite
work, and when he had finished it, he exclaimed,
like Pygmalion to Galatea, " Speak ! speak !"
(Favella ! favella !) and was in the habit of swear-
ing " by the faith I have in my Zuccone !"
Luca della Robbia (1400 — 1481) is supposed to
have invented the process of enamelling terra-cottas ;
he preceded Bernard Palissy by about a century,
but neither of them laid claim to the invention of
enamel. The Greeks, the Phoenicians, even the
Egyptians, were familiar with the art of coating
terra-cotta objects with glazed colours. Della
Robbia adapted it to sculpture, Palissy to pottery*
ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 205
and the enamellers on metal to painting'. We
have some very valuable works by Delia Robbia in
the Louvre ; a St. Sebastian bound to a trunk of
a tree, which seems to be merely a trial of the
style, for the onl)- part glazed is the white cloth
round the loins. T/ie Vij-giu adoring the Infajit
Savio7ir, a kind of bas-relief in the centre of a
round frame rather like a large plate, is another
specimen of the process, but incomplete also, for
(with the exception of the eyes, which are black)
the entire group, figures and draperies alike, is
glazed white, on a ground of two colours — blue for
the sky, and green for the landscape. We see the
invention brought to perfection in a Madonna
holding the Infant Jesus, a very fine group in full
relief, the different parts of which are glazed in all
the colours which would be employed in a painting,
with the beautiful varnish called invetriato by the
Tuscans.
Sansovino (Jacobo Tatti) was born at Florence
in 1479, ^"<^ Isf^t a Bacchns to the Uffizi Gallery,
which will bear comparison with that by Michael
Angelo ; but he took up his abode at Venice,
where he was summoned and retained bv the dosre.
Andrea Giitti, after having first worked at Rome
under Julius II. Duke Cosmo, Duke Hercules,
and Pope Paul III. all urged him to devote hi.s
^V.*/
206 ITALIAN SCULPTURE.
double talent, as a sculptor and an architect, to
their respective '.apitals, Florence. Ferrara, and
Rome ; but according to Vasari, he replied to all
their solicitations : " Having the good fortune to
reside in a republic, it would be madness to go and
live under an absolute prince." The principal
works produced for Venice by Sansovino have
remained in the rich and altogether oriental church
of St. Mark. The most important are the four
bronze statues of the Eva7igclists in the choir, and
still more admirable is the magnificent gate of the
sacristy, behind the altar, also of bronze ; an
astonishing work, at which Tatti is said to have
laboured for thirty years. Amongst the designs
on this gate, Sansovino has placed his own bust in
relief, between those of his tuo friends, Titian and
Aretino, who, however, can lay little claim to
sanctity.
The equestrian statue of the famous cojidottiere
Bartolommeo Colleoni of Bergamo, in the small
lateral piazza of the church of San Giovantii San
Paolo (in common parlance, San Zanipolo) at
Venice, also belongs to the fifteenth century. It
was designed by the Florentine Andrea Verrocchio
— who was a painter, sculptor, engraver, jeweller,
and musician — and was cast in bronze by Ales-
sandro Leonardo, who also executed the graceful
ITALIAN SCULPTURE.
201
Corinthian pedestal which supports it. This cele-
brated equestrian statue, one of the first produced
by the Renaissance, is eulogised by Cicognara in
the following terms : " The horse seems ready to
descend from its pedestal. Its movements are full
Fig. 43.— Equestrian statue of Bartolommeo Colleoni.
of energy, without being exaggerated. The rider
is majestic, and, although clothed in iron mail, he
could not sit more easily and gracefully. Without
prejudice to progress, we think we may say that no
more beautiful work has since been produced in
this style."
208 ITALIAN SCULP TUBE.
This age can ^llso claim one of the most mar-
vellous works ever produced by sculpture, which is
placed in the kind of semicircular gallery which
runs round the choir of the Djiomo of Milan. It is
the statue of a flayed man, called St. Bartholomew,
on account of the legend. Imagine a human body,
as large as life, entirely deprived of its skin, from
the crown of the head to the soles of the feet,
standing in the natural position of a man free from
pain, and wearing this skin flung over his shoulder
hke a mantle. Imagine, further, the greatest beauty
of form, the strictest truth of action, the most
incredible perfection of execution of the muscles,
the nerves, the bones, the sinews, the veins ; of all
the details revealed by anatomy, and you will have
an idea of this strange masterpiece, which, for
patient and scrupulous chiselling, is probably un-
surpassed by any ancient or modern work. The
very colour of the marble, which has assumed a
reddish tint, aids the illusion and adds to the
admirable effect. Beneath this strange statue is
the following inscription :
" Non me Praxiteles, sed Marcus finxit Agrates."
The name of the author is all that is known of its
history. This Agratus, Agrates, or Agrati, or
whatever he is called, is alluded to in no biography,
in no book on art ; his birth, his death, his country,
ITALIAN SCUJ.PTUnE. 209
the time at which he Hved, are aUke unknown and
I know of no other production of his chisel. Most
probably, like a Benedictine, he worked all his life
dt this kind of infolio in marble, ano died content
after having proudly compared himself to Praxiteles.
This statue of the Flayed Man would be more
appropriately placed in a museum than in a
church.
We have now come to Michael Angelo.
We know that Michael Angelo Buonarroti was
born in 1474, in the castle of Caprese, in the
Casentino. He was of a noble family, which
reckoned the famous Countess Matilda among its
ancestors. His nurse was the wife of a stone-
cutter, and the young Angelo showed germs of his
artistic genius even in his cradle. Speaking of him,
Vasari says : " While the best artists were en-
deavouring by the light of Giotto and his followers
to give the world examples of such power as the
benignity of their stars and the varied character of
their fantasies enabled them to command, and
A-hile desiring to imitate the perfection of nature
by the excellence of art, they were struggling to
attain that high comprehension which men call
Intelligence, and were universally toiling, but for
the most part in vain, the Ruler of Heaven was
pleased to turn the eyes of his clemency tow9rdti
r
210 ITALIAN SCULPTUBE.
earth, and perceiving the fruitlessness of so many
efforts, the ardent studies pursued without any
result, .... deigned to send to the world a spirit
endowed with universality of power* in each art
and in every profession, capable of showing by
himself alone what is the perfection of art, .... in
painting, . . . sculpture, . . . and architecture. . . .
The Almighty Creator was also pleased to accom-
pany the above with the comprehension of true
Philosophy, and the adornment of graceful Poesy,
to the end that the world . . . might admire in
him an example of blamelessness in life and every
action, as well as of perfection in all his works ;
insomuch that he might be considered by us a
nature rather divine than human." f
The mask of a faun's head, sculptured by Michael
Angelo in marble as an amusement when a child,
and which revealed his vocation, and led to his
immediate admission into the academy of Lorenzo
the Magnificent, is carefully preserved in the
museum dcgl' Uffizi at Florence. "Your faun is
old," the Duke had said to the young artist, " and
you have left him all his teeth. Have you not
noticed that old people always have some missing .?"
* Hi-.'.crJan of painters and sculptors, you are now forgetful of
Fra Angelico, Masaccio, and Leonardo da Vinci !
i ivirs. jonac'nan Forster's translation. Vol. v. pp. 227 and 228.
ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 211
Michael Angelo at once broke one of his faun's
teeth, and scooped out the gum. Near this
youthful attempt are his great unfinished bas-
relief of Mary, Jesus, and St. John ; his Apollo, a
mere rough-hewn block ; and his Brutus, which is
scarcely even that. Michael Angelo often set to
work on a block of marble without any prepara-
tion, without a sketch or a clay model. Sometimes
he had not enough marble for his plan, or he cut it
too deeply, and then, unable to realise his idea, he
would leave the block but half-hewn.* But no
amateur or artist will grumble at not seeing these
excellent works finely finished ; for, as in a painter's
sketch, they can here see the sculptor's first crude
thought, and the secret of his mode of working is
* Beneath the Brutus, the following distich has been engraved : —
" Dum Bruti effigiem sculptor de marmore ducit,
In mentem sceleris venit, et obstupuit."
(When the sculptor was carving the figure of Brutus in marble,
he remembered his crime, and, in his stupor, he paused.)
The President De Brosses relates that one day Lord Sandwich
was looking at the Brutus, and shocked at the blame of this great
republican, he at once composed the following contradictory
distich : —
" Brutum efiecisset sculptor, sed mente recursat
Tanta viri virtus, sistit et obstupuit."
(The sculptor would have finished Brutus, but at the thought of
the virtue of this great man, he suddenly stopped, discouraged,)
212
ITALIAN SCULP TURK.
revealed. Truly this secret is worthy of study, and
it is easy to see to what perfection the artist could
attain when he chose to work patiently, because
the Dninkcn Bacchus, which is probably his most
Fig. 44. — Ivy-crowned Bacchus. (Florence.)
delicate and highly finished work, is near at hand.
Instead of the passion, the stern pride of the Moses
at Rome, the Bacchus is full of grace and tender-
ness. Crowned with ivy and vine leaves, he is
ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 213
pressing grapes into a cup, from which a little
satyr, wrapped in a goat's skin, is trying to drink
unobserved. The smiling mouth, the sleepy eyes,
the languid attitude, the apparent difficulty in
remaining standing, all admirably express the
efifects of drunkenness.
Florence may count herself fortunate in having
collected these productions of her illustrious son ;
for we learn with dismay how many of Michael
Angelo's works, besides his celebrated cartoon of
the Pisan War, have perished and disappeared
from the world, leaving no trace but their name.
In 1492, a Colossal Heracles, sent to Charles VIII.
of France ; in 1495, a Sleeping Cupid, sent to the
Duke of Mantua; in 1501, a bronze David, ob-
tained by a certain Florimond Robertet of Blois ;
in 1507, the bronze statue of Pope Julius II., broken
by the rebellious Bolognese ; then a picture of
Leda, sold to Francis I. by the servant at Michael
Angelo's studio, and burnt one hundred years
afterwards by order of a confessor of the queen ;
and lastly, the Marginal Dante, in which he had
sketched the greater part of the figures and inci-
dents of the Divina Commedia. All these form a
very long and sad catalogue — a gloomy mortuary
table.
The chief of the works which Florence prides
214 ITALIAN SCULPTURE.
herself on possessing are not in the Museum of
Florence, but in the sacristy of the old church di
San Lore?i2o, originally built in the fourth century,
and consecrated by St. Ambrosius, but recon-
structed in 1425, after Brunelleschi's designs. This
splendid edifice, built by order of Clement VII., is
called the Medici Chapel.
It is a strange fact that Michael Angelo was
working at this funereal chapel when he was called
upon to defend republican Florence against the
Medicis. Everything in it, even the altar, in front
of which is the Virgin nursing the Ittfant Jesus, is
from the hand of the great master, with the ex-
ception of the statues of Saints Cosmo and Damian,
by his pupils Montorsoli and Raffaello da Mon-
telupo. On one side is the Mansoleiim of Giiiliano
Medici, in which the statue of the Duke is placed
over the figures of the Day and of the Night ; on
the other, the Mausoleum of Lorenzo Medici, Duke
of Urbino, with whose statue are the Early Dawn
and Evening. This statue, one of the master-
pieces of modern sculpture, is famous under the
name of Pensieroso, on account of the melancholy
and thoughtful attitude in which Michael Angelo
has represented this precocious tyrant. Of the
four allegorical figures, equally gloomy, morose,
and terrible, the Evening and Night are the most
ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 215
admired. To the latter Giam-Battista Strozzi
addressed the following verses : —
La Notte die tu vedi in si dolci atti
Dormire, fu da un angelo scolpita
In questo sasso ; e, perche dorme, ha vita ;
Destala, se no'l credi, e parleratti.*
The Stern Michael Angelo made his statue answer
in the following bitter epigram, a satire on his own
age, and on many another : —
Grato m' e il sonno, e piu I'esser di sasso,
Mentre che il danno e la vergogna dura ;
Non veder, non sentir, m'e gran ventura.
Pero non mi destar : deh ! parla basso.f
Rome, where Michael Angelo spent the second
part of his long life, and for which he executed his
great works in painting and architecture, has
also inherited some of the fine productions of his
chisel. The cathedral of Christendom, St. Peter's,
possesses the celebrated Madonna della Pieta,
sculptured by Michael Angelo when eighty-four
years old, after the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel,
before the erection of the cupola. And the church
* "Night, whom you see sleeping so calmly, was sculptured in
this stone by an angel ; she sleeps, she lives. Awake her if you
doubt, and she will speak to you."
t " It is pleasant to me to sleep, and still more do I prefer to be of
stone, in this age of the triumph of evil and shame. It is a great
advantage to me to see nothing, to feel notliing. 'Iherefore wake
me not.,- ah ! speak low."
21fi ITALIAN SCULPTURE.
of Minerva, which still retains the name of the
heathen temple, contains the no less celebrated
statue called the Christ of Michael Angelo ; an
angry and avenging Christ, the repetition, in
marble, of the thought, at least, embodied in that
of the Last Judgment. But we shall find a still
more famous work if we ascend a steep hill, called
in ancient Rome the Vicus Sceleratics — because
Tullia is said there to have crushed her father's
body under the wheels of her chariot — and enter
the old basilica of St. Peter in chains (San Pietro
in Vincola), which has been restored several times
since its foundation under Pope Leo the Great, but
has always retained its primitive form. It contains
the mausoleum of Julius II. and the Moses of
Michael Angelo.
One word of preliminary explanation.
There were points of similarity in the genius and
character of the two men, pope and artist, which
tended both to unite and separate them. And the
event proved this. Julius II. had hardly ascended
the pontifical throne before he conceived the idea
of perpetuating his memory by a magnificent
mausoleum, and having chosen Michael Angelo to
execute it, he summoned him from Florence for
the purpose. Michael Angelo, who was then
only twenty-nine years old, soon presented to
ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 217
the pope a plan of the most colossal tomb that
modern art ever attempted to construct. It
was to be a combination of architecture and
sculpture, a decorated edifice. Imagine an ex-
tremely massive quadrangle, with niches in the
sides, containing Victories, and in the angles
terminal figures forming pilasters, on which the
figures of captives were to be placed ; on this large
basement a second narrower massive block, sur-
rounded with colossal statues of prophets and
sibyls, was to be added ; and that, in its turn, sur-
mounted by a pyramidal mass, entirely covered
with allegorical figures in bronze. Such was the
composition of which engraving has preserved
Michael Angelo's sketch. It would have been as
large as the mausoleum of Augustus, which towered
above all the buildings of heathen Rome. The
artist began the work, but his disagreements with
Julius II. soon ensued, and he fled to Florence, to
Bologna, to Venice, and even thought of going to
Constantinople, where he was invited by the Sultan
Soliman, to erect a bridge between that town and
the suburb of Pera. He did not return to the
pope at Bologna until he was sent as Florentine
ambassador by the Gonfalonier Soderini. After
their reconciliation, the pope ordered him to make
his statue in bronze, but it was broken by the
218 ITALIAN SCULPTURE.
Bolognese in a revolt, and made into a cannon
called the Giulia.* It was long afterwards, when
Paul III. commanded him to paint the fresco of
the Last Judgment, that an arrangement was
entered into, at the suggestion of the pontiff,
between Michael Angelo and the heirs of Julius II.,
which resulted in the reduction of the mausoleum
to its actual proportions. Of the original plan,
nothing was finished but one Victory, now at
Florence, two Captives, in the Louvre, and one of
the prophets, the Moses, an allegorical portrait of
Julius II., forming part of his actual mausoleum,
and entirely executed by Michael Angelo himself.!
This colossal Moses is seated, holding the tables
of the Law in his right hand, and stroking the long
beard, which flows over his breast, with one finger.
On his head, which is slightly turned to the left,
are the two horns, ascribed to him by tradition,
which, springing from his thick hair, exactly re-
semble those of a young calf or goat. Perhaps
Michael Angelo, like all his contemporary artists,
was in love with ancient mythology, and wished
* It was when he was making the model of this statue, that
Michael Angelo said to the warrior pope : " Would it not be well,
Holy Father, to put a book in the hand?" "Put a sword,"
answered Julius ; " I know nothing of letters."
t There were to have been four large figures : Active and Con-
templative Life, St. F(7u/, and the Moses. (Vasari.)
ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 219
to give Moses the symbols of the god Pan, of the
Great-All, which metaphorically represented all
nature, embracing all creatures, and was at that
time confounded with the Egyptian Osiris. Or he
may have intended to produce a portrait of his
regretted master, Savonarola, whose face somewhat
resembled a goat's, and whose peculiar eyes were
called occhj caprini by his contemporaries.
Many things have been criticised in this figure ;
the head is said to be too small for the immense
beard, the legs too long for the feet, the body thick,
and the gaiters and flannel robe unsuitable to each
other. Lastly, with more truth, it is urged that
some of the details are scarcely worked out, hardly
even rough-hewn. The last fault, if it be one, is
common to nearly all Michael Angelo's works, for
he cared no more for small effects in chiselling a
statue than he did in painting a picture, or in
sketching the plan of a building. It should also be
remembered that the Moses is a colossal figure,
intended to be seen at a certain height. But
however much foundation there may be for these
criticisms, this faulty Moses is none the less its
author's masterpiece of sculpture, and probably
also of all modern statuary. To find its equal it
would be necessary to go back to antiquity, for I
see nothing like it in the works of Donatello,
220 ITALIAN SCULP TURK.
Sansovino, Puget, or Canova. I shall not, there-
fore, pause to defend it from the charge of faults of
detail, but remark, in my turn, that the anatomical
drawing of the feet, hands, arms, and face, may be
compared to that of the most perfect specimens
left by the ancients. In speaking of Michael
Angelo, I prefer to follow his mode of procedure in
the arts ; and to say, that taken as a whole, his
Moses is the grandest and most admirable emblem
of strength, severity, and power, ever produced ;
and that never have those various qualities which
give authority, and constitute the superiority of one
man over his fellows, been so fully expressed. His
irresistible glance seems to be overawing a muti-
nous people, and reducing them to submission at
his feet. He is indeed the stern legislator of the
Hebrews, armed with the terrible Law. I do not
believe that, celebrated as they were in antiquity,
the Jupiter Olympius, the Juno of Samos, or the
Minervas of Athens, were more majestic, more
fearful, or better calculated to inspire the populace
with terror and religious awe. Vasari says of this
statue : " So well, at a word, has the artist ren-
dered the divinity which the Almighty had im-
parted to the most holy countenance of that great
lawgiver. At a word, the sculptor has completed
his work in such a sort that Moses may be truly
ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 221
affirmed more than ever to merit his name of the
friend of God ; and to Michael Angclo the care of
preparing his resurrection was intrusted. Nay, the
Jews are to be seen every Saturday, or on their
Sunday, hurrying ... to visit and worship this
figure, not as a work of the human hand, but as
something divine." (Mrs. Forster's translation,
p. 249.)
We have already said that the Louvre may
pride itself on possessing a work by this Titan of
art. We allude to the two Captives which were to
have been placed in the angles of the monument to
Julius II. One, perhaps the more beautiful, is
incomplete, like the monument itself. The head
is scarcely chiselled, the neck hardly rough-hewn.
Fortunately no sacrilegious hand has dared to finish
the work of Michael Angelo. And who could
complain at seeing his mode of working revealed
to them, as in the B^'utus of the Uffizi* Are not
the features of the one Captive, barely indicated as
they are, as suggestive, indeed as full of admirable
expression, as those of its highly finished com-
panion .'' Is not every limb of both full of
* We can see, for instance, how in the first rough hewing of the
marble Michael Angelo tried to imitate the sinuous lines, the
curves, the serpentine fortns, as he himself called them, of which the
human figure is always made up in every attitude and every variety
of action.
222 ITALIAN SCULPTURE.
suffering and humiliation ; in the one borne with
resignation, in the other with gloomy im-
patience ? Rightly to admire these grand figures,
we have only to remember what they are, or
rather what they were to have been ; and before
them we repeat the exclamation of the sculptor
Falconnet : " I have seen Michael Angelo ; he is
appalling !"
On the high altar of Notre Dame at Bruges,
a celebrated Madonna is shown, said to be by
Michael Angelo. In the north, where statuary is
always poor, its chief material, marble, being
wanting, this Madoima was sure to excite extra-
ordinary admiration. It is indeed a very fine
group, in a noble, lofty, and solemn style. The
Virgin is seated, and, like a Byzantine Madonna,
she is clothed to the throat, and her head is covered
with a veil, but all the draperies are light and
graceful. The Holy Child stands between her
knees, as in K3.pha.eV s Mado/ina with the Goldfinch ;
he is naked, his attitude easy, and the modelling
of his flesh perfect. On the whole, I admit that
the too often misapplied title of masterpiece may
rightly be bestowed on this beautiful group. But
is it by Michael Angelo } Doubt is justifiable on
this question, and I do not hesitate to doubt.
When a fine piece of Italian sculpture arrives in
ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 223
Flanders, and is enthusiastically admired, it is
naturally at once ascribed to the greatest Italian
sculptor. But where is the historic proof? Some
tale, I know not what, is told of its capture, when
on its way from one town of Italy to another, by
an Algerian corsair, which in its turn was taken by
a Dutch vessel. But this is only one of those
vague traditions which may sanction a fable, but
do not establish a truth. It undoubtedly requires
more insight to recognise a sculptor's than a
painter's touch, and to ascribe a piece of statuary
to the right author with absolute certainty is very
difficult. But for this reason we are more at
liberty to deny, or at least to doubt, that such a
work is by such a sculptor. In this case, most
decidedly, the chiselling is softer and more delicate,
that is to say, less energetic and powerful, than
Michael Angelo's. If, however, this group were by
the great Italian master, it would belong to his
youth, to the time of the Bacchus of Florence,
not to that of the Moses of Rome. But one
material and palpable fact ought, I think, to settle
the question. It is that neither the Virgin nor the
child have any pupils in their eyes ; and I know
that amongst all the great Florentine's works there
is not one statue or bust without pupils. This
seems to me decisive. The- style of the group,
2L'4 ITALIAN SCULPTURE.
although noble and dignified, is not very severe ;
and this, together with the somewhat fastidious
deHcacy of many details, leads me to suppose_that
it does not belong to the epoch closed by Michael
Angelo, but might be ascribed, for instance, to
Donatello, Delia Robbia, or John of Bologna. It
resembles still more the works of Sansovino, who
was renowned for the lightness of his draperies,
and the refinement of the heads of his women and
children. But might not this Madonna of Bruges
be the work of the Florentine Torregiano, or
Torregiani, who left his own land out of jealousy of
the success of Michael Angelo, and after wandering
through France, Flanders, and England, finally
died miserably in Spain } Torregiano was called
Michael Angelo's rival, and in a boyish quarrel
he broke the future master's nose by a blow
with his fist. This would be enough to lead
tradition to ascribe his \vork to Michael Angelo
himself.
At the same time that the great Florentine was
living at Rome, and Sansovino at Venice, another
native of Florence was rising into notice ; and
having left Italy, established himself at Fontaine-
bleau, where he rendered the same services to
French sculpture as Andrea del Sarto, Rosso, and
Primaticcio had to painting. We allude to Ben-
ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 225
venuto Cellini (1500 — 1570), who was a jeweller,
an engraver on stone and metal, a founder, a
chaser, and a sculptor. He struck the beautiful
coins used by Clement VII. at Rome, and Alex-
ander Medici at Florence, and wrote treatises on
sculpture, jewellery, and the casting of metals,
besides the curious Memoirs, in which he relates
his strange adventurous life. He left a group of
Perseus cutting off the Medusa's head, at Florence,
in front of the fine portico of Orcagna called the
Loggie de' Lanzi ; and in France he sculptured the
Nymph of Fontaineblcan, now in the Louvre. It is
scarcely a group or a statue, but rather a high
relief cast in bronze. A nude female of colossal
size, with limbs of inordinate length, supports
herself on the left arm in a semi-recumbent posi-
tion, whilst the right is round the neck of a stag,
the head of which, with its huge horns, projects
beyond the rest of the group. Cellini was soon
driven from the court of Francis I. by the scorn of
the Duchesse D'Etampes, and this nymph of the
woods, this huntress Diana, is the most important
of the works produced by him during his sojourn
there. It was placed in an arched frame, and
intended to decorate the tympanum of the Porte
Doree at Fontainebleau ; but Diana of Poitiers
persuaded Henry II. to give it to her, and placed
Q
226 ITALIAN SCULPTURE.
it over the entrance of her chateau of Anet. Near
this Nymph are two splendid chased vases in
Florentine bronze, also attributed to Benvenuto
Cellini, but there is no proof that he is their
author : the material, style, and beauty of work-
manship alone warrant the idea.
Ammanato, a worthy pupil of Sansovino, con-
structed the inner court of the Pitti Palace, and
sculptured the beautiful fountain, which bears his
name, for the public garden — the colossal Neptune,
drawn by four sea-horses. After him, Italian
sculpture passed into the hands of a Neapolitan,
Lorenzo Bernini ; and at the same time Italian
painting, finally deserting the Bolognese, was most
successfully practised by another native of Naples,
Luca Giordano. The two great sisters, as Vasari
calls them, simultaneously declined.
The Cavaliere Bernini (1598 — 1680), who was
ostentatiously called the second Michael Angela
was the arbiter of the taste of Europe, and the
judge of all artistic matters in Italy for half a
century, and under nine different popes. Louis
XIV. summoned him to Paris in 1665, to advise
him about the restoration of the Louvre ; and we
think that had Bernini lived when art was at its
zenith, he might have been a great man ; but
comnig as he did, when the decadence had set in,
ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 227
he yielded to its influence, and instead of checking,
he encouraged its progress. As an architect, he
erected the pretentious circular piazza forming the
approach to the cupola of St. Peter's, by the great
Florentine. As a sculptor he executed the pulpit
and canopy of the sovereign pontiff and the tomb
of Urban VIII., with its two huge masculine-
looking attendant figures, from whose breasts the
milk of Justice and Charity flows upon the body
of the dead pope. The last named is probably
Bernini's best work. His style of sculpture
somewhat resembled Rubens's painting, minus the
colour.
Algardi was as full of affectation as Bernini of
pretension, and he flourished about the same time,
1583 to 1654. As a sculptor he scarcely equalled
Albano. Encouraged by these two chiefs of the
decadence, and also by Luca Fa presto, depraved
taste now sanctioned even frivolous productions.
At Naples visitors are always taken to the San
Severo chapel and expected to admire the sculp-
tures which it contains. There we see r^ recumbent
Christ under a sheet, through which the outline of
the nose, shoulders, and knees may be discerned ; the
statue of a woman, called Modesty, because she is
completely covered with a kind of damp, clinging
garment ; and lastly, the allego.ical personification
228 ITALIAN SCULPTURE.
of a human soul extricating itself from vice — that
is to say, a sort of human fish trying to break
the meshes of a marble net, in which, of course, the
devil had entangled it. There may be a certain
ease of workmanship in these strange productions
of Antonio Corradini, even as there is dexterity
of touch in the works of Van Loo and Boucher ;
but for all that they evidently belong to a school
still more inferior than that of Bernini — a degene-
ration from his, in fact ; and their influence is so
fatal to the cause of art, t at we only allude to
them for the sake of warning every one against
even looking at them, and urging sensible men
never to sanction the production of such monstrous
anomalies, either by visiting or praising them. In
them we have execution without style or taste,
manual power without soul or spirit.
To find Italian sculpture once more rising to the
position of a great art, and realising the ideal, we
nmst pass on to Antonio Canova (1747 — 1822),
who, like Giotto and Mantegna, rose from the
position of a herdsman to that of an artist. In the
room appropriated to bas-reliefs in the Academy
of the Fine Arts at Venice is preserved the precious
porphyry urn containing Canova's right hand ; his
heart is in the church of the Frari, and the rest
of his body in the village of Possagno. Beneath
ITALIAN SCULP TUBE. 229
this urn his chisel is suspended, and the following
inscription engraved : —
Quod mutui amoris monumentum
Idem glorias incitamentum sit.*
Canova only left one group, Dcedalus and Icarus,
to Venice, although he died there. It was one of
his earliest productions, yet it fully revealed his
powers. It formed part of the Barbarigo collection,
now dispersed. We must look for Canova's works
at Rome. In the church of the Holy Apostles
(SS. Apostoli) we find the mausoleum of Clement
XIV. ; in the basilica of St. Peter's, the tomb of
Pius VI., that of the Stuarts, and the still more
celebrated vwnuumito di Rezzonico to Clement
XIII. ; and lastly, in the Vatican, such of his
sculptures as have received the perilous honour
of beine mixed v.'ith the most valuable relics
of ancient Greece. These are, the Wrestlers,
Damoxcnus and Crcugas,\ which are very inferior
to those of Florence— they are appropriately called
the boxers, for they express nothing but clumsy
brute force — and the statue of Perseus, which
Canova did not hesitate to undertake, although he
was familiar with that by Benvenuto Cellini, and
* May this monument, the memorial of a mutual affection, be also
an incentive to g'oiy.
t See the histoiy of these pugilists in Fausanias. (Book xiii
chap. 40.)
230 ITALIAN bVULVTUBE.
which received the signal honour of filling the place
of the Apollo Belvedere when the latter was carried
off to Paris by the French. The beautiful title of
Fig. 46. — The Perseus of Canova. (Rome.)
Consolatrice was also given to it. The face of the
Perseus resembles that of the Apollo, and this is a
fault rather than a merit. It is very delicately
finished, and slightly affected. The Medusas head
ITALIAN SCULVTUllK. 231
held in the hero's hand will not terrify any one, for
it is that of a young and beautiful woman, with the
serpents arranged in such a manner as to resemble
the symmetrical locks of the Assyrians. Faithful
to the Grecian type, and taking the antique Medusa
of Munich for his model, Canova succeeded in com-
bining moral deformity with physical beauty, and
has given his Gorgon that expression of freezing
disdain which pierces the soul, and may be fatal.
Canova shared the fate of his country and be-
came a subject of Austria, and his chief works are
to be found, not at Rome, but at Vienna. One of
them, the mausoleum of Maria Christina of Austria,
a daughter of Maria Theresa, and the wife of Duke
Albert of Saxe-Teschen, is in the church of the
Augustines, where are also to be seen the entire
skeletons of Saints Clement and Victoria, in bro-
cade garments, under glass cases — an edifying
spectacle, no doubt, but not so attractive as a fine
statue ! A funeral procession advances along an
open pyramid, the shape of the great sepulchres of
antiquity. Veiled Virtue carries an urn containing
the ashes of the princess, preceded by weeping
maidens typifying Innocence, and followed by
Benevolence supporting an okl man. On the
threshold a weeping spirit, the symbol of the
husband, left behind upon the earth, leans against
2.'^2
ITALIAN SCULPTURK.
a Hon. Although this ostentatious tomb is some-
what theatrical, and may almost be called heathen,
it is undoubtedly a fine work, and the style and
effect are alike grand. All these figures combine
and harmonise well, they are admirably grouped,
"i;,'i"fi-
Fiy- 47
Grouii from the Mausoleum of IMaiia Christina, by
C'anova. (Vienna.)
and many of them— one of the young girls, and the
old man supported by Benevolence, for instance-
would be excellent statues if seen alone. On the
whole, we think that the mausoleum of Maria
Christina, which is the most important of Canova's
ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 233
monuments, is as likely to preserve his fame to future
generations as any of the tombs whicli he erected
under the vast dome of the Catholic metropolis.
Another of Canova's works, the colossal group of
Theseus conqueror of the Minotaur, is still more
celebrated in the art world. For the worthy re-
ception of this Italian guest a temple was con-
structed in the Volksgarten (People's Garden) of
Vienna, which was an exact copy, in size and shape,
of the temple of Theseus at Athens ; the material
alone is different ; plaster has taken the place of the
white marble of Pentelicus. Canova's group, like
the old statue of the demi-god, is worshipped in
this temple, and its priests are a kind of policemen,
who open the doors at promenade hours. Except
for a Grecian helmet, Theseus is nude, and is
raising his club, the weapon of the companion of
Alcides, to despatch the monster whom he has just
thrown down at his feet. This attitude is perhaps
theatrical, the ordinary fault of Canova's large
compositions, but the statue as a whole is a
splendid study ; every limb, every muscle perfectly
expresses strength in action. For my part, how-
ever, I consider the finest part of the group to be
the Minotaur — if such it may still be called, now
that sculpture, sacrificing historic truth to beauty
of form, has converted the son of Pasiphae, the
234
ITALIAN SCULP TUBE.
man-bull, into a man-horse, a centaur.* His action
under the weight of Theseus, who presses his throat
Fig. 48. — Theseus vanquishing the Minotaur, by Canova.
(Vienna.)
with the left arm and his stomach with one knee,
is most happily rendered, and full of energy. The
* It is possible, tliat in spite of tiie name given to this famous
group, the sculptor intended to represent not Theseus slaying the
Minotaur, but Theseus killing the Centaur Euiytion, who carried
off the beautiful Hippodamia at the wedding of Pirithoiis. It is the
subject of one of the most valuable monochrome drawings on marble
found at Pompeii, and collected in the museum of Naples.
ITALIAN SCULPTl'HK 235
head, flung back to the crupper, which is convul-
sively struggling to raise tlie double body, the
heaving chest, the legs bent under him and appa-
rentl)' broken, the exhausted arms, which only
retain sufficient strength to seek a support upon
the ground, all together form a splendid whole,
which reminds us of the famous antique group of
the Wrestlers, in which also the conqueror is ex-
celled by the vanquished. In this part of the huge
group, even the marble is more beautilully veined
and of a closer grain. Suffering is as wonderfully
rendered in the Minotaur as force in Theseus ; and
if we must needs be critical, we may notice a
decided resemblance between his head and that of
the Laocoon. The features of Theseus, too, which
express anger and scorn, are somewhat like those
of the Pythian Apollo. The artist may have in-
tended to render a sort of homage to the two great
masterpieces of Grecian art in the Vatican, which
had served him as models. I noticed one slight
fact which proves how thoroughly the young Pos-
sagno peasant studied the smallest archaeological
details, and how well he knew how to turn his im-
provised education to account. He has given his
hero the crushed ears of the pancratiast athletes.
It was this Theseus, in fact, who, when king of
Athens, founded the lesser Panathenaea, in which
236 ITALIAN SCULPTURE.
gymnastic games were celebrated ; and, like many
other illustrious Grecians, even after the heroic age,
Pythagoras, Chrysippus, and even the divine Plato,
for instance, he is supposed to have taken part in
them personally.
Canova also erected another tomb at Florence,
that of Alfieri, and was afterwards invited to Paris
by Napoleon, and made a member of the Institute.
There he left his charming statue of Repentant
Magdalene, which has passed through so many
different collections ; and one other work, the group
of Zephjrus carrying off the sleeping Psyche to the
mysterious abode of Cupid, which justly enjoys the
exceptional honour of being the only piece of
statuary by a foreigner in the French museum of
sculpture in the Louvre. This charming, light,
and airy group, reproduces all the charms of the
tale of Apuleius as translated by La Fontaine. It
worthily represents the herdsman transformed into
a great artist ; so great, indeed, that no modern, not
even Michael Angelo himself, succeeded better in
imitating the beauty of form, the charm of expres-
sion, and the delicate workmanship of the produc-
tions of antiquity.
In 1S15 he undertook to restore to Italy those
objects of art which were seized by France in the
time of the exactions of the Empire, that they
ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 237
might adorn the capital of the continent. For
this he has been condemned : but was Canova
French or Itahan ? Were not the treasures which
he restored to his country by force first taken from
it by force ? And if we blamed as mucli as we
regret his mission, how could that affect the merit
of his works ? Let us be as just to talent as to
valour, even in our enemies.
Canova's was the reigning school of Italy until
our own age, and is so still. It produced the Dane
Thorwaldsen, of whom we shall presently speak,
and the Florentine Bartolini, who a few years ago
might have been called the only artist of Italy.
To the lessons, example, and traditions of this
school also, we owe all those rising sculptors who
came into notice at the Universal Exhibition,
Messrs. Dupre, Vela, Argenti, Luccardi, Strazzi,
etc., whose works, although somewhat feeble and
affected, yet possess true grace. The delicacy of
the execution is really marvellous ; the marble
is made to accommodate itself to all the vagaries
of fashion ; it is bent, plaited, and covered with
laces and embroidery, like a textile fabric. Italy
produces many successful imitators of Canova, but,
alas, not one disciple of Michael Angelo. Let her
take heed : beauty there is, but no grandeur in
such an imitation.
238
CHAPTER III.
SPANISH SCULPTURE.
OCULPTURE did not occupy an equal or even
^ a proportionate position to painting in Spain.
We find scarcely any traces of the culture of this
art, at least of its highest branch, statuary ; and no
marble or bronze work equal to the canvasses of
Velasquez, Murillo, or Ribera, has ever been pro-
duced. The Arabs could teach the Spaniards
nothing but architecture, as the Koran had pro-
nounced an anathema on all the other arts of de-
sign, and even on music. It is true that the Arabs
of Spain submitted to these restrictions less scru-
pulously than their Syrian brethren ; but the lions
of the Alhambra, although merely fanciful creatures,
chimeras, monsters, etc., in reality constituted an
heretical offence. Neither the Mussulmans of Africa
nor of Andalusia were ever allowed to make any
but clumsy imitations of certain noxious animals,
such as rats, scorpions, and serpents, which were to
SPANISH SCULP TUBE. 239
serve as talismans, amulets, and scarecrow s, to drive
the latter from dwelling-houses and mosques ; so
that the Spaniards could receive no lessons from
that quarter.
A little later, when the Florentine, Gherardo
Stamina, and the Fleming, Pierre de Champagne
(Pietro Campaiia), introduced the first examples of
the art of painting into Spain, other foreigners
brought models of that of sculpture. Among them
was Filippo Vigarni, called Philippe de Bourgogne,
doubtless because he came from the court of dukes
Philippe-le-Hardi or Jean sans-Peur, for he was
more likely a Fleming than a Burgundian. He
executed some important works in the cathedrals
of Burgos and Toledo, but principally ornamented
ones, such as pulpits and choir seats. Torregiano,
the rival of Michael Angelo in Italy, already men-
tioned, was another of these artists. We know
that after his quarrel with the illustrious pensioner
of Lorenzo Medici, he fled to Florence, enlisted as a
soldier, gained the rank of ensign, again became an
artist, and travelled to Flanders, England, and lastly
to Spain, where he penetrated as far as Andalusia.
In 1520 he made a celebrated statue of St. Jerome,
for the convent of Buenavista, near Seville, which
Goya ranks higher even than the Moses of Michael
Angelo ; and at Seville, also, he executed another
24C SPAXISH SCULP TUl.'E.
statue, the Madonna holding the Infant Jesus, for a
duke of Arcos, who, for some unknown reason,
insulted the sculptor by paying for it in maravedis,
which were carried in sacks by two men. Torre-
glano at first thought he had received an immense
sum ; but when he discovered that all this heap of
copper money was not worth thirty gold ducats, he
took a hammer and broke his statue. Incensed at
this offence against a grandee of Spain, the duke
accused the artist before the Inquisition of impiety,
and the unfortunate Torregiano starved himself to
death in his prison (1522). One of the hands of
the broken Virgin, which is very beautiful, is pre-
served at Seville. Resting on one of her breasts,
it is called the mano de la teta, and has been repro-
duced many times by copies or casts.
Of the Spanish artists who went to Italy, in the
reigns of Ferdinand of Aragon and Charles V., to
take lessons in all the arts, only two, Alonzo
Berruguete and Jaspar Becerra, learnt and prac-
tised the three arts of design. The former (1480 —
1 561) was taught by Michael Angelo himself, and
was invited to Rome by Pope Julius II., to assist
his illustrious master in his works of every kind.
He returned to his native land in 1520, rich in
experience and talent, and was distinguished by
Charles V., who nominated him his painter and
SPANISH SCULPTURE. 241
sculptor de cdmara, and later, to honour him still
further, appointed him to the office of valet de
chambre. After this, Berruguete was intrusted
with some important commissions at Valladolid,
Toledo, and Granada. At Toledo he sculptured
the throne of the Primate-Archbishop, and executed
the Transfiguration of Our Saviour, in marble.
He is said to have given the emperor the design
for the unfortunate and pretentious palace which
Charles V. had erected in the very heart of the
Alhambra, destroying part of the delicate moresque
structures to make room for it ; but this is a mis-
take : the architect of the unfinished palace was
Pedro de Machuca. Berruguete only worked at the
details and ornamentation, in which he excelled ;
and even now, in spite of the barbarous mutilations
to which they have been and still are subjected,
it is easy to see that they were of the finest taste
and the most exquisite delicacy. They are chiefly
bas-reliefs executed on plaques of marble of a
greyish violet colour, very hard to work, but very
pleasant to look at ; and they do great credit to
Berruguete, who was always more successful as a
sculptor than as a painter or an architect. The
subjects are the triumphs of Charles V., who chose
to be represented as a nude Hercules, with the
club and the skin of the Nemaean lion. Later we
R
2-12 SPANISH SCULP TUBE.
see Louis XIV. as Apollo, with the rays and thc^
lyre. The emperor, however, was not content with
the motto of the demi-god. The Ne plus ultra of
the columns of Abila and Calpe seemed too modest
for him, and he changed it into Phis oultre, which
was written in the French of the day on all the
decorations of his palace, and under his successors
became the Plus ultra of the coat of arms of that
monarchy on which the sun never sets.
Caspar Becerra (i 520 — 1570), who is very favour-
>ably mentioned by Vasari as the author of the
drawings in a book on anatomy, published at Rome
in 1554 by Doctor Juan de Valverde, and of two
anatomical statues highly esteemed in the schools,
had scarcely returned to Spain when Philip II. did
for him what Charles V. did for Berruguete : he
intrusted him with several works in the old Alcazar
at Madrid, and the new Pardo palace, and to mark
his royal approval, nominated him his sculptor in
1562, and his painter in 1563. Like Berruguete,
Becerra was a greater sculptor than painter. Cean
Bermudez does not hesitate to say that in this par-
ticular he excelled all the Spanish artists who pre-
ceded him, and that he was surpassed by none of
those who succeeded him. His masterpiece is said
to be a statue of Our Lady of Solitude (Nuestra
Senora de la Soledad), which was ordered by the
SPANISH SCULP TUBE. 243
Infanta Dona Isabella de la Paz, daughter of
Philip II., and placed in the chapel of the convent
of the Brothers Minimes* at Madrid. Many-
miraculous tales \vere told of this statue and col-
lected by the monk, Fray Antonio de Arcos, in a
book published expressly in 1640 ; but confining
our criticism to its artistic excellence alone, it is
impossible to deny that this statue, in which
tenderness, suffering, and resignation are all vividly
expressed, is a work worthy of the greatest names
in the most famous centuries.
To the age of Philip II. and Charles V. belong
also the two celebrated tombs erected in the reign
of the emperor and by his orders in the old chapel
royal {capilla real) of the cathedral of Granada.
In one repose the Catholic sovereigns, Isabella of
Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon, whose marriage
united the entire Peninsula in one monarchy, from
which Portugal was subsequently again separated ;
in the other, their daughter, Juana la Loca (Joanna
the Crazy), and her husband, Philip the Handsome,
of Austria, father and mother of Charles V., to
whom their combined inheritance gave the empire
of Germany, with the Iberian kingdom and the
Indies. These tombs are both sculptured in white
marble, and on each are statues of the famous pair
* Religious order of St. Francis de Paula. — (Tr.)
244 SPANISH SCULPTURE.
whose royal dust they inclose. The first is a solid
socle or pedestal, the enlarged base of which gives
it an appearance of strength and solidity, whilst
the other is finer, more delicate, and elaborate, so
that the styles of the two tombs correspond with
the character of their respective tenants, who
would seem to be resting on them, as beds of state,
for the last time. Looking at these fine tombs
from an artistic point of view, it is impossible to
avoid a mental comparison with those of Charles
the Bold and Mary of Burgundy in Notre Dame
at Bruges, and again with those of the dukes of
Burgundy, Philip the Hardy and John the Fearless,
which were transferred from the old Carthusian
convent of Dijon to the museum. It would be in-
teresting to draw a parallel between these six tombs,
French, Flemish, and Spanish, made for princes of
the same family, in the course of a century and a half
For my part, I certainly prefer those at Granada to
those at Bruges ; and those at Dijon, which are the
most ancient, to the tombs at Granada. For a
long time the last-named enjoyed the advantage of
standing in a vast and beautiful chapel, the walls,
pavement, and roof of which were entirely com-
posed of black stone, the pilasters, voussoirs, and
pendentives being marked out in fine gold lines,
the white tombs alone standing out from the dark
SPANISH SCULP TUBE. 245
and solemn surroundings. The canons, however,
considered the chapel royal too gloomy, and had it
whitewashed from top to bottom. The tombs,
pavement, roof, and walls are now all of one
colour, all equally bright, and in the universal
whiteness nothing stands out but the black cassocks
of the clergy.
At Granada another Spanish artist was born,
who, like Berruguete and Becerra, has been com-
pared to Michael Angelo, because he cultivated
the three arts of design. His name was Alonzo
C^uno (1601 — 1617). His father was a common
carpenter, who made an art of his trade, and was a
joiner {ensamblador) of those huge decorated altars
which we call retables. When Alonzo Cano went
to Seville and took up his abode amongst the
masters who founded the school of this Athens of
Andalusia, he made up his mind to do something
more than learn to put a rotable together like his
father ; in fact, to compose one entirely himself,
with its columns, statues, and pictures ; to be at
once its architect, sculptor, and painter. This was
how he became a threefold artist. He took lessons
in sculpture from a certain Juan Martinez Montailes,
but at once departed from his master's style ; and
as all his works are remarkable for a simplicity of
attitude, a nobility of form, and a good taste in
24G SPANISH SCULP TUBE.
arrangement unknown before him, we must con-
clude that he studied in preference the few statues
and Greek busts which were then at Seville, in the
palace of the Dukes of Alcala, at least if we sup-
pose that he mastered the antique without having
seen Italy.
About 1635, Alonzo Cano erected the high altar
of the church of Lebrija, which is one of the most
beautiful works of the kind. The statue of the
Virgin holding the Holy Child, which occupies the
central niche of the retable, is especially admirable.
His other sculptures, nearly all in wood, are dis-
tributed in different churches at Seville, Cordova,
Granada, and Madrid, where some of them are
still proudly shown. Alonzo Cano combined a
fastidious taste with a very hot temper. It is
related of him, that being at the point of death, he
threw a crucifix which was offered to his lips in the
face of the officiating priest, because he thought
it clumsily carved, and died embracing a plain
wooden cross.
It may be said that the art of statuary became
extinct in Spain on the death of Alonzo Cano.
Its cultivation was neglected, the carving, even of
simple wooden ornaments, was discontinued, and
soon no one could be found able to set up a church
retable. The two great sisters had expired to-
SPANISH SCULP TUBE. 247
gether. At the same time that Goya made his
unexpected appearance as a painter, a young
sculptor, who had doubtless just returned from
Italy or France, suddenly produced the justly
famous group of Daoiz and Velarde (the two chief
victims of the 2nd of May, 1808), which has been
kept ever since in the Mitseo del Rey. Antonio
Sola, the author of this group, died before he
attained maturity. No one took up his chisel, at
least with any success, and at the Universal
Exhibition not a single Spanish work obtained
any distinction in the open competition of the
sculptors of every nation.
There is, however, a kind of scnlptnre in Spain
which at least deserves to be mentioned. We
allude to the little figures in coloured paste,
manufactured at Malaga, Granada, and Valencia.
This style, though small, is pleasing, and it has
been practised by some true artists. In one of the
rooms of the Academy of San Fernando at Madrid,
for instance, there is a long series of these little
figures, rather larger than usual, being about a
quarter the size of life, which are of perfect work-
manship. They are divided into fifty or sixty
groups, representing different incidents of the
Massacre of the Innocents ; and their author, Juan
Gincs of Valencia, flourished in the first half of the
248 SPANISH SOULPTUBE.
present century. The details of these groups are
of an infinite variety ; the execution is strangely
and wonderfully powerful ; and if they have a fault,
it is that they are too exactly copied from nature,
as the colours on them make them look like wax
figures. They prove, however, that Spanish
sculpture might have kept pace with the progress
of painting, had it not been so entirely neglected
after Alonzo Cano produced his beautiful works.
249
CHAPTER IV.
GERMAN SCULPTURE.
OCULPTURE was cultivated even less in
*^ Germany than in Spain during the Middle
Ages. Indeed we may assert, almost uncon-
ditionally, that not a single piece of statuary
was contributed to the common stock by a German
artist until the present century. From the banks
of the Rhine to those of the Niemen we shall find
no works of the chisel but a few decorations of no
particular style in the old Gothic cathedrals. It is
but a popular legend which attributes the delicate
stone carvings, which adorn the tower of the won-
derful cathedral of Strasburg, erected by Erwin of
Steinbach, to his daughter Sabina ; and although
history has preserved the names of some architects
of the same age, such as Puchspaum, author of the
Saint Stephen of Vienna, I know of no other
sculptor besides this daughter of Erwin of Baden.
It was different in the time of the Renaissance.
2cO GERMAN SCULPTURE.
Sculptors from Germany then practised their art
even in Italy, for Vasari says explicitly : " Nicolas
of Pisa surpassed the Germans who worked with
him." But these modest artists, simple artisans,
did not put their names to their works, so that the
Calvary of Spires and the copper Baptistery of
Saint Sebald at Nuremberg, are by unknown
authors. We know, however, that the beautiful
fountain of Nuremberg, erected rather later, is by
Sebald Schuffer, and that the long bas-reliefs of
the Passion in the same town are the work of Hans
Decker and Adam Krafift. At Nuremberg, too, is
the beautiful tomb of St. Sebald, which has justly
established the fame of Peter Vischer. This tomb
combines a number of figures of saints, apostles,
and angels, with many others which belong not to
Christianity but to universal history. " At the
foot of St. Sebald's tomb," says Woltmann,
"Vischer has grouped the heroes of Judaism and of
heathen antiquity ; children play with lions or are
cradled in the calyx of flowers ; a host of sirens,
tritons, and satyrs, the entire ancient mythology,
defile before our eyes. The whole universe ad-
vances to render praise to the Saviour." Peter
Vischer left his own portrait in the dress of a work-
man amongst these figures ; and it must be remem-
bered that he lived very near the time of Albert
GERMAN 8CULFTURE. 251
Durer, so that he does not belong even to tne
Renaissance, but to the golden age of German art.
In the room leading to that devoted to French
statuary in the museum of modern sculpture
in the Louvre, which might appropriately be
called the foreign room, on account of the
variety of objects it contains, a few small speci-
mens of German plastic art of the fifteenth to
the sixteenth century have been collected. Can
they be called sculpture .'' I think not, for they do
not include one statue, one high relief, or one piece
of large proportions and grand style. All are little
figures in very low relief Neither marble nor
bronze are used, but materials not employed else-
where. They are rather carvings than sculptures,
and not one is accompanied by its author's name.
The following are hung on the walls in the embra-
sures of the windows : a Descent from the Cross, in
yellow copper ; the Triwnph of Maximilian, deli-
cately and carefully carved in wood ; the Repose in
Egypt, after Albert Diirer, another tedious work,
cut in the hard calcareous stone called hone-stone ;
some armorial bearings slightly incised on the same
hard stone, the relief being obtained by the use of
aquafortis, and afterwards coloured. This was a
revival of the old process which led to the discovery
of lithography.
252 GERMAN 8CULPTURK.
It was the same during the age of the three
schools of German painting at Nuremberg, Augs-
burg, and Dresden, represented by Albert Durer,
Holbein, and Lucas Kranach. Not a single sculptor
arose capable of competing with these great
masters, and if we wish to find a piece of sculpture
worthy to be compared to their canvases, we must
turn to one of themselves, who, like the great
artists of Italy, aspired to becoming a universal
artist. Albert Diirer executed sculptures in wood
and in ivory, and such are the grandeur of style
and skill of workmanship, that they may be con-
sidered true works of art in spite of the unsuitable-
ness of the material employed. In the small
museum at Carlsruhe, for instance, there is a little
ivory group in high and low relief of three nude
females, which might be called the Three Graces,
only one of them is a dignified matron, and on
the ground a fourth woman, not so well preserved,
is distinguishable, who is apparently taking part in
a round dance. The figures are not only correctly
proportioned, they are so full of graceful and pleas-
ing beauty, that we are not surprised to discover
the celebrated monogram — cut in relief also, so that
forgery is impossible — so often traced on austere
paintings and powerful engravings. Here Albert
Diirer has proved that vigour was not the only
G Eli MA N SCULP TUBE. 2' 3
characteristic of his masculine genius. With the
graver or brush in hand he was Dorian, ivory made
him Ionian. The name it bears, the curiosity it
awakens, and the admiration which it ought to
inspire, combine to render this group of inestimable
value.
To understand the sudden decline of the two
great sisters in Germany, we have only to remember
that there the Protestant religion, less showy than
the Catholic, checked the progress of the arts,
whilst the terrible Thirty Years' War {i6iS — 1648),
with its attendant ravages and desolation, soon
followed to complete their ruin and deal their death-
blow. In speaking of German sculpture, as of
painting, we must therefore pass over the entire
interval between the three schools already men-
tioned, which became extinct with their founders,
and the renaissance attempted at the beginning of
the present century by Overbeck, Cornelius, and
their followers.
A marble group of importance, and worthy of
the notice of visitors for many reasons, was placed
among the plaster casts of celebrated ancient and
modern statues at Frankfort-on-the-Main, by one of
richest bankers of that commercial city, in which
the cradle of the Rothschild family may still be
seen in the Judengasse (Jews' Street). We allude
l;54
GERMAN SCULPTURE.
to Ariadne on the. Panther, signed, Danneckcr, of
Stuttgart, 1 8 14. This Ariadne is very celebrated,
at least on the borders of the Rhine, from Mann-
heim- to Coblentz. The hihabitants of Frankfort
pride themselves on its possession, and have treated
■^^>-|il|i,i|g|ij|jl„^.^j^li
Pli"i- -
I
^^^iiilfiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiii III! III! II mil
FiJ,^ 49. — Ariadne on the Panther. By DaunecKer.
(Frankfort-on-the-Main.)
it as the Neapolitans did the great mosaic of Pom-
peii, reproducing it, as a national glory, in bronze,
plaster, ivory, and even in stag's horn. It is a fine
work, certainly, but I thinlc it far beneath its repu-
GERMAN SCULP TUIIK. 255
tation. 1l\\q Ariadne — which appears to be an imi-
tation of an antique fresco, Nereis carried by a
Monster — is stretched at full length on the back of
a panther, or, rather, chimera, for the mythological
animal which supports her is not a known living
creature. Her attitude is graceful and pleasing,
although slightly distorted. The upper part of the
figure of the beloved of Bacchus — not yet deserted,
but triumphant — is less beautiful than the lower
limbs. The legs are very fine, both in design and
execution ; the torso is also very good, but not
equal to the legs ; and the head appears to me the
feeblest part of the group. Ariadne is guilty of
the vulgar gesture called turning up the nose ; her
forehead is narrow, her chin broad. The artist
evidently intended to give her the antique shape,
the Greek type of face ; but he has only succeeded
in producing a cold and clumsy imitation. The
studied style of coiffure is a failure also ; it is too
modern, too coquettish, nor is the execution re-
markably delicate. We need not go back to the
great age of the Donatellos and Michael Angel os
for comparisons : we find Dannecker's Ariadne iz.x
surpassed by the Magdaleiie and Terpsichore of his
immediate predecessor, Canova, and it is excelled
by many later works bearing the names of Rauch,
Schadow, Schwanthaler, Rietschel Kiss Drake,
256 GERMAN ."SCULPTURE.
Begas, etc. Nevertheless its fame is justifiable, and
easily explained. If I were to be asked to state
its chief and most indisputable merit, I should
answer: Its date, 1814. After the interminable
wars of the Empire, during which all the arts lay-
dormant, Germany greeted their revival in this
Ariadne with as much joy and pride as peace
itself. It was the glory of the artist, and is still the
honour of his work to have inaugurated this renais-
sance.
The Belvedere of Vienna possesses one of the
best productions of this German revival, the Jason
carrying away the Goldeji Fleece, by Joseph Kaesch-
mann, executed at Rome in 1829, in the more
graceful than powerful style of the Canovas and
Thorwaldsens. Amongst the monstrosities sur-
rounding it, this Jason appears an incomparable
masterpiece.
At the same time, but at Berlin, Christian Rauch
(1777 — 1857) not only opened a studio, he founded
a school. The work which placed him at once at
the head of all the sculptors of Germany, is the
tomb at Charlottenburg, of Louisa, called the beau-
tiful queen, wife of Frederick William III., and
mother of the present king and his predecessor.
Rauch represented her reposing on her tomb, and
he made another statue of her on foot for Potsdam.
Fig. 50. — Bronze monument erected to the memory of Frederick the
Great. By Christian Ranch. (Berlin.)
GERMAN SCULP TUHE. 257
This queen was his benefactress ; she removed
him from the obscurity of the palace, and sent him
to Rome, where he made rapid progress in his art
under the enlightened guidance of the learned
William von Humboldt. On his return to Prussia,
Ranch devoted a long life to the production of a
number of great works, mostly portraits. The best
of these numerous statues and busts are, the bronze
statues of Generals Scharnorst, Bulow, Yorck,
Blucher, of King Maximilian of Bavaria at Munich,
of Luther at Wittemberg, of Albert Diirer at
Nuremberg, and six marble Victories in the Wal-
halla, etc. But the chief work of his whole life was
the magnificent bronze monument erected to the
memory of Frederick the Great, in 1851, in the
grand square (Unter den Linden) of Berlin. The
base of the pedestal, which is twenty-five feet high,
is surrounded by the chief characters of Frederick's
reign, including men of letters, such as Kant and
Lessing, as well as warriors, like Ziethen and the
Prince of Anhalt-Dessau ; whilst the king himself,
on horseback, seems to tower above the city which
owes its pre-eminence to him, and over the whole
of that mighty monarchy of which he was the trnt:
founder.
We said that Christian Rauch founded a school :
it 5tiU exists, carried on by his pupils, amongst
S
>58
GERMAiJ SCULP'lUliE
whom Augustus Kiss and Frederic Drake are
especially distinguished. The latter is the author
of the charming high-reliefs which embellish the
pedestal of the statue of Frederick William III in
llinili!iliiilinwilliil!llltlll!l*lkffillWNRiM
Fig. 51. — The Amazon, by Aug. Kisa (Berlin.)
the T/iiergarten of Berlin, and the former of the
Amazon on horseback attacked by a lioness, placed
in front of the peristyle of the museum This
bronze group is splendid, full of action and life.
GERMAN SCULPTURE.
?59
The warrior-maiden of the Thermodon, excited by-
anger rather than by terror ; the queen of the
desert, chnging to the horse's neck with teeth and
claws , the horse, quivering beneath her horrible
embrace, are all most powerfully rendered, and
Fig. 52. — Goethe and Schiller.
form an admirable whole. We are tempted to
address the horse as the Greek poet did that of
Lysippus : " What a grand head ! what flames are
emitted from his nostrils! If the rider touch him
260 (iKUMAN SCULPTURE.
with his heels, he will carry him onwards, for the
bronze lives." (Grec. Anthol.) I venture, however,
to find one fault with this beautiful statue. I do
not approve of the rough locks worn by the heroine
beneath her Phrygian cap. They surround her
face with a kind of aureola, which the material
renders stiff and heavy, and they give her the
appearance of a Gorgon with the headdress of ser-
pents. Unfortunately an early death prevented Kiss
from making a companion statue to his Amazon.
After the Prussian Ranch, Ernest Rietschel, a
Saxon (1804— 1 86i), took the lead in Germa»
sculpture. Amongst others, the following works
are ascribed to him : a line group of the Madonna
adoring Iut Dead Son, which the Italians called a
Pieta ; the marble statues of the four great sculp-
tors of Greece, placed in the facade of the new
museum of Dresden ; and the beautiful bronze group
of Goethe and Schiller, which was cast at Munich,
in 1857, by Herr Miillcr, and now adorns the Theate?--
platz at Weimar. Whilst preserving the appro-
priate character of each of the illustrious friends,
Rietschel has endeavoured to express the warm
and tender affection which united them till death,
and which nothing, not even their success and fame,
could alter. The great minds of both poets were
above jealousy.
GEBMAX SCULPTURE. 261
The reputation of German sculpture is worthily
sustained in our own day by Herr Frederick Drake,
who gained a valuable prize at the Universal Ex-
hibition, and by Herr Reinhold Begas, who would
certainly have been successful had he competed.
Wii will now speak of the Dane Thorwaldsen
(Albert Bartholomew, 1770— 1844), as we cannot
devote a chapter to one man. He was the con-
temporary and rival of Canova, and they are justly
classed together as the two great sculptors of the
period, including the end of the last century and
the beginning of the present. Educated in Italy,
whither he was enabled to go by a drawing prize
awarded to him, studying the same models as
Canova, with the same opinions on the practice
of their art, and forming himself after the same
style, the Danish artist necessarily resembled the
Venetian. Thorwaldsen, also, counteracted the
influence of Michael Angelo on Italian art, pre-
ferring, like Canova, grace to power, and delicacy
of execution to boldness and originality of thought,
at the same time avoiding, like his rival, the affec-
tation of Bernini. When still young, he became
known by a colossal statue of Jason bringing home
the Golden Fleece. Many others followed this first
production : a colossal Mars, v/hich at once became
famous ; an Adonis, which Canova himself called
262
GERMAN SCULPTURE.
a masterpiece ; the Graces, the Muses, Venus,
Apollo, Mercury , then a j\Iadon7ia for Naples,
Christ and the Twelve Apostles for the cathedral of
Copenhagen, the equestrian statue of Poniatowski
at Warsaw, that of Gutenberg at Mayence, etc.
Thorwaldsen was as successful with bas-reliefs as
with works in full relief A great many by him
have been reproduced in casts or engravings, and
1
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^
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=5^.
1
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1
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T-^
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J,cirL/^s..'-
7:s,rr,,
Fig. 53. — Entrance of Alexander into Babylon, by Thorwaldseru
the most remarkable is the long series repre-
senting the Entrance of Alexander into Babylon,
which was ordered by Napoleon, and now embel-
lishes the great hall of the palace of Christiansborg
in Denmark. Speaking of it, a biographer of the
artist says : " It is perhaps the most admirable
masterpiece produced by art since the ever glorious
age of Grecian sculpture." When old and wealthy,
GERMAN SCULPTURE. 263
Thorwaldscn devoted part of his large fortune to
the foundation of a museum at Copenhagen. This
building bears his name, and contains a considerable
number of the diverse works which rendered him
illustrious.
264
CHAPTER V.
FLEMISH SCULPTURE.
WE gave the name of the Painting of the
Lozv Countries to the sister schools of
Flanders and Holland, looking upon them as two
manifestations of one grand style. It would be
useless, however, to try .and find a common title for
the two schools of sculpture, which was but little
and very indififerently cultivated in Flanders, and
not at all in Holland. Possessing no marble
quarries, no copper-mines, not even stone, and
drawing her very timber supplies from abroad,
Holland appears from the first to have renounced
an art for which nature had denied her the
materials. No sculptor rivalled Lucas van Leyden,
Rembrandt, and Paul Potter, nor were there any
statuettes or carvings equal to the porcelain of the
Chevalier Van der Werff The bronze or marble
statues in the public squares, museums, or town-halls
of certain Dutch towns, are the work of foreign artists,
so that we have only to treat of Flemish sculoture.
FLEMISH SCULPTURE. 265
It is at Bruges, the town rendered illustrious by
Hemling and the. brothers Van Eyck, that we find
not merely the best but the only proofs that the art
of sculpture was practised in Flanders at the same
time as that of painting. Whilst Jan Van Eyck
was inventing and teaching the process of oil-
painting, some artist fellow-countrymen were work-
ing in wood, marble, and bronze. On entering the
church of Notre Dame, the visitor is at once con-
ducted to the celebrated tombs of Charles the Bold
and his daughter, Mary of Burgundy, from which
the movable planking is lifted with great care and
ceremony. These two tombs are simply black
marble slabs, on which repose effigies in gilt copper.
Charles is in warlike costume, wearing a beautifully
chased suit of armour, the ducal crown, and the
badge of the Golden Fleece — an order of chivalry
founded at Bruges in 1429 by his father, Philip the
Good, the collation of the insignia of which has
been divided between the king of Spain and the
emperor of Austria since the death of Charles V.
The duke's helmet and gauntlets lie beside him,
and his feet rest on a lion. Round the frieze are
arranged the coats of arms of his different domi-
nions ; on the sides of the slab, those of his con-
temporary sovereigns, of the emperor, kings, dukes,
counts, crowned prelates, etc., and on the surface is
266 FLEMISH SCULPTURE.
engraved the motto of this enterprising and per-
severing prince, Je I'ay ampris, bien en aviengne.
It would have been well to inscribe on his tomb
the words pronounced by Duke Rene of Lorraine
when the corpse of Charles was found after the
battle of Nancy : Voire dine ait Dieu, bean cousin,
car vons avez fait moult manx et doulenrs. The
head of Mary of Burgundy rests on a large cushion,
and her feet on two small lapdogs. Her statue is
chiefly remarkable for the delicate carving of the
draperies and clothes. Mary died, as we know, at
twenty-five, from a fall from her horse, and her
tomb, made several years before that of her father,
is the better of the two. The branches of the trees
in copper, and the little angels of the same metal
which support the armorial bearings — all the orna-
ments, in fact — are of the most delicate execution.
But although this tomb of Mary of Burgundy
may surpass those of her son, Philip the Good, and
oi her daughter-in-law, Joanna the Crazy, which
we noticed in the cathedral of Granada, it is by
no means equal to those of her ancestors, John the
Fearless and Philip the Hardy, Dukes of Burgundy,
now in the museum of Dijon. All the details of
these Lilliputian buildings, the pointed arches
three feet high, the cloisters, in which pace figures
fifteen inches long, the pinnacles, the little angels,
o
3
C
C
C-
o
3
FLEMISH SCULPTURE. 267
the marble and alabaster lacework, are remarkable,
not only for exquisite finish and perfection of work-
manship, but also for elegance of design, harmony
of proportions, and suitable arrangements. The
statuettes of the mourners, that is, of the praying
monks and weeping officers of the palace, are
really wonderful. There are eighty small figures,
each of which taken alone is a little masterpiece,
and seen together, their beauty and excellence are
enhanced by contrast. The attitudes, of extra-
ordinary variety, are all natural, the expressions
all true and full of feeling, whilst the style of the
heads, the fall of the draperies, and the delicacy of
the execution, surpass all that we should have ex-
pected from the age in which they were produced.
These tombs, the details of which will bear com-
parison with the bas-reliefs of Ghiberti and of Jean
Goujon, may well be considered the most precious
relics of the period immediately preceding the
great Renaissance.
I mention them here because they are connected
with Flemish art. The first named, that of Philip
the Hardy, finished in 1404, is the work of three
Flemish artists, Claux Sluter, assisted by his
nephew, Claux de Vou.sonne, and by Jacques de
Baerz, all three image-makers to the duke of Bur-
gundy. The tomb of Jolin the Fearless was erected
268 FLEMISH SCULPTURE.
forty years later by a Spanish artist, Juan de la
Huerta, a native of Daroca in Aragon, who was
aided by two Burgundian artisans, Jehan de Drogues
and Antoine Lemouturier. I could not find out at
Bruges who were the authors of the tombs of
Charles and Mary ; their names are probably for-
gotten there now.
We must not leave Bruges without visiting the
Palais de Justice. In the room in which the
juries delibe ;.!e is the famous chimneypiece of
carved and sculptured wood, of which the cast is in
the Louvre. There is a legend connected with
this chimneypiece. It is said that a certain
Hermann Glosencamp, condemned to death for
I know not what misdeed, asked permission to
produce one last specimen of his handicraft. He
was a wood-carver. With the aid of his dausfhter
he undertook this famous mantelpiece, which saved
him from the gallows, and gained his full pardon.
The statues which embellish it are nearly the size
of life. In the centre is Charles V., on foot and in
armour, holding a naked sword in one hand and
the globe in the other. On the right are his great-
grandfather, Charles the Bold, and Margaret of
England, his third wife ; on the left, his grand-
parents, Mary of Burgundy and Maximilian of
Austria. Spirits, Cupids, armorial bearings, and
FLEMISH hCVLP'lUBE. 209
different ornaments fill up the spaces between these
five statues, and complete the general decoration
above the frieze of the chimneypiece, which latter
represents the history of Susannah in very low
alabaster bas-reliefs, and is by a certain Guyot de
Beaugrant. It would be difficult to excel the good
taste of the arrangements and the beauty of the
workmanship of this masterpiece. No artist, even
to save his head, could have done better than
Hermann Glosencamp. I am careful not to say
cou/d do better, for the art of sculpturing in wood,
the art of Germany as well as of Spain, of the North
as well as of the South, is almost lost ; and when
we look at the fine works it has produced, our
reeret is increased that it should hav^e been so
completely abandoned.
Between this age and the beginning of our own
I find no other Flemish work to mention worthy
of being classed amongst the wonders of sculpture,
and Rubens, Vandyck, and Teniers had no sculp-
tors to rival them more than Rembrandt. In our
own day Messrs. Gallait, Leys, and others, are con-
sidered the renovators of painting, as these artists
were formerly ; and with them we must class Messrs.
Geefs, Fiers, Sopers, and Wiener, who are equally
eminent and successful revivers of sculpture.
270
CHAPTER VI.
ENGLISH SCULPTURE.
THE first thing we see when we enter the
British Museum, to visit the basalt and por-
phyry images of Egypt, the alabaster slabs of
Assyria, and the marbles of Halicarnassus and the
Parthenon, is the pediment of the modern building,
which contains from twelve to fifteen allegorical
figures, the work of the most celebrated sculptor
of England, Sir Richard Westmacott. Taken
separately, these marble statues are not without
a certain merit, for they are finely and carefully
executed ; more so, indeed, than the point of view
requires, as they can only be seen from below and
at a distance. But as a whole they are wanting in
harmony, grace, and dignity, and a more striking
and unpardonable defect is the pretension of the
subject they represent — the Progress of Civilization.
If the English had chosen this subject for the chief
entrance of the docks of London, the naval arsenal
ENGLISH SCULPTUBE. 271
at Woolwich, the observatory of Greenwich, or the
northern railway, nothing could have been more
suitable, for it is in these places that they can
prove the superiority of the present over the past,
and the continuous progress of mankind in theo-
retical and practical science ; but in the arts,
talent is an individual gift — an artist cannot trans-
mit his talent at his death any more than his soul.
And does modern London hope to have excelled
ancient Greece ? A strange mode surely of proving
the progress of civilization, to place English and
Grecian art in juxtaposition — to challenge com-
parison between the brick architecture of Sir
Robert Smirke and the marble buildings of Ictinus
and Callicrates — between this tympanum by Sir
Richard Westmacott and the pediments of Pheidias!
In my brief review, in a former work, of the
richest collections in London, including the national
museum, my readers were doubtless surprised not
to find a word on sculpture. But what can be
said .'' " Where there is nothing," says the popular
proverb, " the king loses his rights," and so does
criticism. Except for an inferior marble statue of
the painter, David Wilkie, the National Gallery con-
tains as yet nothing but pictures ; and I have met
with no single work worth mentioning by a native
sculptor in any public or private collection or
272 ENGLISH SCULF'IUBE.
drawing-room. It is the same in the public gardens,
parks, and squares. Could I write a description
of the bronze equestrian statue of the Duke of
Wellington, erected in Piccadilly in front of his
residence, and opposite that other grotesque statue
representing this illustrious statesman and warrior
on foot as a Fighting Achilles, which is perfectly
nude and perfectly black .'' The equestrian statue
is seen in profile, not full-face ; that is to say, it is
placed sideways on the miserable triumphal arch
which serves as a pedestal, and it most resembles
Punch mounted on Balaam's ass — at least so it has
been caricatured by the witty Charivari of London,
to whose pages it properly belongs. On the whole,
if I am not mistaken — and the few pieces of
statuary in London appear to confirm this view —
the English work with good taste and real success
in second-rate styles. In painting they excel in
water-colours, either cabinet-pictures or portraits ;
in engraving, in mezzotinto, copperplate, or the
Keepsake ; in sculpture, in bust portraits. In the
true national museum of sculpture, Westminster
Abbey, we shall find this last assertion justified.
In the chapel of Henry VII., the largest and
most profusely decorated in the old monastery of
the west, where the knights of the Bath are now
installed, we find the best and earliest piece of
ENGLISH SCULPTURE. 273
sculpture which England can pride herself on pos-
sessing — the tomb of the founder of the chapel.
It is the work of the celebrated Florentine, Pietro
Torregiano, whose tragic history we have already
related. On the tomb, which is of black basalt,
covered with various ornaments and surrounded by
a rich and massive chantry of cast brass, recline
the effigies of Henry VII. and his queen, Elizabeth.
We will not attempt to review thoroughly the
other ten or twelve chapels of the abbey, but
briefly notice the principal tombs, not according to
their positions, but according to the rank occupied
in the world by the illustrious dead whose ashes
they cover. First, then, we will complete the list of
royal personages. Here we find the great Eliza-
beth, whose marble statue immortalises the round
eyes and hooked nose, the cold, imperious, and
haughty manner characteristic of the maiden
queen ; Mary Stuart, more beautiful, more
lovable, and more frail ; Edward V. and his
brother Richard, both assassinated; Charles II.,
the restored monarch, not far from the instrument
of his restoration. General Monk ; William III.,
called to the throne by the glorious Revolution ;
his wife, Mary ; Queen Anne ; and, lastly, George
II., who prepared his own grave in the vault of
Henry VI I. 's chapel.
T
274 ENGLISH SCULPTURE.
Westminster, however, is not only the St. Denis
of England, it is also the Pantheon. All the men
who have rendered great services to their country,
or whose works have made them illustrious, share
the honour and the fame of those whom accident
or birth called to the throne. There are but few
warriors amongst them ; we look in vain for the
Black Prince, Talbot, Marlborough — Nelson rests
in St. Paul's, almost alone. Westminster contains
more simple officers who died in action than great
naval or military commanders. Near the gorgeous
monument to Captain James Cornewall, with its
elegant bas-relief sea-piece beneath a pyramid
shaded by palms, rest General Wolfe, Field-
marshal Lord Ligonier, and Major Andre,* with
one foreigner, the Corsican chief Pasquale de
Paoli, who was hospitably received by the English
even in their national temple.
The statesmen, who were more numerous in
England, are also better represented in the abbey.
I shall not enumerate the eminent politicians of the
Tudors and Stuarts, but pass on to those of our
own age : Lord Stanhope ; Lord Mansfield, whose
magnificent mausoleum was erected in 1805 by
* This Major Andre was unjustly shot as a spy by the Americanr.,
on October 2nd, 1780. A monument was erected to him in the
Abbey, but he was not buried there, as M. Viardot implies. — (Tr.)
ENGLISH SCULPTURE. 275
Fiaxman, the great illustrator of Homer and
Dante ; the earl of Chatham, father of Pitt ; the
two illustrious rivals, William Pitt and Charles
Fox ; the orator Grattan ; and, lastly, George
Canning, the successor of Fox and the forerunner
of Robert Peel.
Amongst these numerous sepulchral monuments
to men little known beyond the Channel, there are
some commemorating names of more European
celebrity, before which the foreigner pauses with
greater respect. Such are Camden, the learned
antiquary ; Sir Godfrey Kneller, who was court
painter under five kings, from Charles II. to George
I., and who filled the mansions of Great Britain
with historic portraits ;* the chemist, Sir Humphry
Davy, to whom trade and philanthropy owe as
much as science ; James Watt, who did not, it is
true, invent steam, but who controlled its power
and regulated its use ; William Wilberforce, a good
man and true philanthropist, who ought not to be
separated from Howard, who rests in St. Paul's ;
and, lastly, the great Sir Isaac Newton, whose
* More modem painters, such as Sir Joshua Reynolds, Benjamin
West, Sir Thomas Lawrence, and David Wilkie, are buried in the
vaults of St. Paul's. In the centre of the same building rests also
the architect who designed it, under a plain slab it is true, but with
the following magnificent sentence engraved upon it : ^' Si rei/uiris
tnonununtum, circums/>ki.^'
276 ENGLISH SCULPTUBE.
tomb, like the sanctuary of God, should be, not in a
building, not in a country, but in the universe, the
laws of which he recognised and laid down.
On examining his statue, which is a fine work by
Scheemakers, we are struck by his resemblance to
another great worker of wide views — Michael
Angelo. Newton was a handsomer man, certainly,
for his nose was not broken in his youth by a
choleric rival ; his face, too, is gentler and more
thoughtful ; but for all that, I repeat, the resem-
blance is striking in the general outline of the head,
in the lines of the face, in the features, in the entire
appearance. Beneath the statue of Newton are
inscribed the true and beautiful words, Sibi gratu-
lenUir nwrtales talc taiiUimque extitisse ;* and
lower down, Hiimani generis decus.^
The part of the Pajitheon of England which
I found most delightful and suggestive was the
south transept, or Poets' Corner. Before the
effigies of kings or politicians we experience a mere
cold curiosity ; but in this silent funereal academy,
amongst the men whose memory will live for ever,
and who still speak to us in their works, heart and
mind alike burn within us ; we seem to be in the
actual presence of the imposing assembly, and
* Lei mortals rejoice that such a great genius otice existed.
t Honour of the human rcue.
ENGLISH SCULPTURE. 211
under the scrutiny of these acknowledged masters,
whom we admire, reverence, and love. There, in a
narrow space, are collected nearly all the writers
who have rendered the rich and powerful literature
of England illustrious, and with whom we are
familiar through the lab')urs of our translators and
critics at least: old Ben Joason, Chaucer, called
the Eiinius of England, Spenser, William Shake-
spear, John Milton, Thomas Gray, Butler, \V. Con-
greve. Mason, Gay, Wyatt, Isaac Casaubon, Dryden,
Pope, Addison, Oliver Goldsmith, Rowe, Thomson,
Sheridan. We regret the absence of Swift, Field-
ing, Sterne, Hume, and Richardson ; but of the
greatest authors four only are missing, two belong-
ing to past ages and two to modern times. The
former are Roger Bacon, the learned friar, and
Francis Bacon, Lord High Chancellor of Great
Britain, and the still greater author of the Instau-
ratio Magna; and the latter, Byron and Walter
Scott. I believe that a place is reserved for
Macaulay.*
The sepulchre of the illustrious author oi Para-
dise Lost is not worthv of him ; the little tomb
quite close to the door is shabby for so great
a name. Can it be that the reputation of the
* Macaulay's place is now tilled, and tl e names of I'liaekeray and
Charles Dickens must be added to this list of illustrious authors. — Tr.
278 ENGLISH SCULPTURE.
republican pamphleteer has injured that of the
Scriptural poet ? The great Shakespear is more
suitably treated. His tomb is a remarkable work
by Scheemakers, and he is represented at full length
on a pedestal decorated with symbols and allegorical
figures. There is a natural nobility about this statue,
without any theatrical stiffness, but the face appears
to me too round, too full, too smooth. We could
wish the immortal dramatic poet to have the long,
grave, and thoughtful countenance of his engraved
portraits. At Shakespear's feet, beneath a simple
slab of black marble, lies Sheridan, who might
have had a statue amongst those of the statesmen,
had he not preferred to remain with the authors ;
and opposite, a man who wrote little, but was a
comedian, and doubtless a greater comedian than
Shakespear — David Garrick. His presence here
might be taken as a proof of the tolerance of English
churchmen, so often denied, did we not remember
that the choir alone of the old Roman Catholic
church is consecrated to the dominant form of
worship, whilst the rest is but a secular building.
Amongst the warriors we found the Corsican
Paoli, amongst the men of letters the Swiss
Casaubon, and now, in the Poets' Corner, we meet
with another foreigner, a great poet, truly, although
he did not write in English, or in any spoken
ENGLISH SCULPTURE. 279
tongue, but in that universal language called
music : we refer to the Saxon, George Frederick
Handel. Grateful to this fine genius, the English
retain their reverence for his name and works,
many of them innocently imagining, on account of
his long residence and death in London, that he
was actually their countryman. Handel's monu-
ment, by Roubiliac, is fantastical and theatrical.
In a kind of niche, or marble cabinet, the German
composer stands beside a table, on which are spread
musical books and instruments, amongst others a
horn, doubtless to indicate that he introduced the
brass instruments of his time into the orchestra.
The greatest fault of the statue is, I think,
the lowness of the forehead ; the sculptor has not
done justice to the massive head of his model ; and
I am justified in this criticism, not because I am
a phrenologist, but because I have seen an authentic
portrait of Handel, in which the vivacity of his
somewhat whimsical humour, the energy of his
determined disposition, and the fire of his prolific
creative genius are all clearly rendered.
If, now, instead of noticing the fame of the
celebrities admitted to Westminster Abbey, we
were to consider the tombs as v.'orks of art only,
we should have little to say. Some of them are
remarkable far size rather than grandeur, for odd
280 ENGLISH SCULPTURE.
fancies rather than true originality. The best are
the simplest, such as statues and busts, but none of
them appear to us to bear comparison with the tombs
of the Medici at Florence, of Paul III. or Rezzo-
nico at Rome, of Turenne at Paris, or of Marshal
Saxe at Strasburg. We have already mentioned
the principal monuments : of the ancient, that of
Henry VII. by Torregiano ; of the modern, those
of Lord Mansfield, by Flaxman, of Captain Corne-
wall, of Newton, and of Shakespear by Schee-
makers ; and to them we must add the statue of
Watt by Chantrey, which is said to be a perfect
likeness. There are, however, two other tombs,
both of women, which deserve mention, if only on
account of the fame which they enjoy. One, that
of Elizabeth Warren, represents a young girl, half
nude, in the semi-recumbent position of the Mag-
dalene of Canova.* This figure appears to me
well studied, happily rendered, but what is perhaps
most admired is the imitation in marble of a g-ar-
ment of coarse cloth, of which the threads may
be counted — a childish fancy, reminding us of the
Christ beneath the sJirond and the Fish in the net in
* This figure is not intended to represent Elizabeth Warren
herself, as the text implies, but a houseless wanderer, with an infant
in her arms. Elizabeth Warren was the widow of the Right Rev.
John WaiTcn, D.D., Lord Bishop of Bangor, and was remarkable
for her benevolence.- (Trans.)
ENGLISH SCULPTUBE. 281
the San Severe Chapel at Naples. As for the other
tomb, I failed to discover either the name of the
sculptor or that of the person to whom it is dedi-
cated, for the guides at Westminster hurry the
visitor past the tombs, much as Sancho Panza's
doctor did the dishes at the governor's table. All
that I could make out was that it had something
to do with a lady who was shut up so long in a
dungeon that she died on again seeing the day-
light, when her husband came to rescue her. This
scene is represented on the upper part of the monu-
ment ; beneath, lean Death, coming through the
half-open door, turns back and touches the expiring
captive with his scythe.* It is a strange, theatrical,
and pretentious composition, in the style of the
* We presume that M. Viardot alludes to a monument to the
memory of Joseph Gascoigne Nightingale and his wife, in the chapel
of St. John, St. Michael, and St. Andrew, by Roubiliac, described
in the verger's guide-book in the following words: "The lady is
represented expiring in the arms of her husband ; beneath, slily
creeping from n tomb, the King of Terrors presents his grim visage,
pointing his unerring dart to the dying figure, at which sight the
husband, suddenly struck with astonishment, horror, and despair,
seems to cla^p her to his bosom to defend her from the fatal stroke.
Inscription : — Here rest the ashes of Joseph Gascoigne Nightingale,
of Mamhead, in the county of Devon, Esq., who died July 20, 1752,
aged 56, and of I.ady Elizabeth, his wife ; daughter, and co-heiress
of Washington, Earl Ferrers, who died August 17, 1734, aged
twenty-seven. Their only son, Washington Gascoigne Nightingale,
Esq., in memory of tiieir virtues, did by his last will order this
monument to be erected."' — (Trans.)
282 EXGLISn SCULPTUJiE.
mausoleum of Maria Christina of Austria, erected
by Canova in the church of the Augustines at
Vienna ; but we must acknowledge that some of
the details are very finely executed. The skeleton
of Death, for instance, is powerfully rendered and
the action is good. When the shades of night
begin to gather in the spacious aisles it must form
an appalling apparition.
English sculpture sent no choice work to the
Universal Exhibition, and only gained one insigni-
ficant distinction. An Italian artist, educated in
France, Baron Marochetti, long held high and
undisputed rank as a sculptor in London, but
death has lately removed him from the country of
his adoption.
288
CHAPTER VII.
FRENCH SCULPTURE.
WE have already remarked that even in Italy,
throughout the true Middle Age (from the
fourth to the eleventh centuries), there was a long
pause, during which the arts were almost entirely
in abeyance. In Gaul, which became France
under Clovis, bad taste and ignorance were so
universal, mechanical and intellectual power so en-
tirely wanting, that, as we are told by M. Menard,
Pepin the Short, Charlemagne, and Louis le Debon-
naire used antique engraved stones for seals, and
signed the decrees of their reigns with the impres-
sion of a Jupiter, a Cupid, or a Marcus Aurelius.
It was during the Crusades, at Constantinople
and Antioch, that eastern and western art were
first brought into contact, and the result was a
kind of faint revival in the Middle Ages of ancient
284 FRENCH SCULP TUBE.
Grecian art ; for it may be said that the Byzantine
style was the old Grecian, coloured and modified
by the ideas of the East, of Persia especially, by
those arts which subsequently became Arab :
architecture and decoration.
At the beginning of the eleventh century, when
the terrible year looo had passed away, and belief
in the world's continued existence was restored, the
art of sculpture and that of staining glass appeared
together in France. The influence of the Crusades
was naturally seen in religious buildings, and first
of all in the imitation of Byzantine paintings.
According to M. Viollet-le-Duc, this imitation is
most evident in the sculptures belonging to the
remote age of St. Bernard, in the abbey church of
Vezelai in Burgundy, in which he preached the
second crusade. Little by little, however, Gothic
art freed itself from the tutelage to which it owed
its birth. The Byzantine Christ, blessing and
judging men, soon became no more than the
Crucified ; the glorified Virgin, crushing the serpent,
and resting her foot on the crescent of the moon,
was transformed into the Madonna, mother of the
Holy Child.
The monks of Cluny, whose order was founded
by St. Bernon as early as the end of the ninth
century, were not only better scholars, but also
FEElJdH SCULPTURE. 285
better artists than those of other institutions.
Stonemasons worked under the abbots or friars of
this order who had studied architecture, and the more
skilful of these artisans became carvers of images,
and were intrusted with the most important and
delicate works. They made the statues, or the heads
and hands of the statues ; but they did not give
their names — there was no Pheidias, no Praxiteles,
amongst them. " Their figures," says M. Taine,
" are destitute of beauty, thin, attenuated, mortified,
and suffering ; . . . motionless in expectation or
rapture, they are too frail and impassioned to live,
they are already promised to heaven." And yet
strict judges found fault with them. Gregory VII.
and St. Bernard condemned the license indulged
in by the nascent art. They were hostile to all
beauty, to all shape. \'irtuous, not beautiful
saints were required, with nothing about them to
distract the eye or the mind, or to excite earthly
love. Shoulders and hips were not to be repre-
sented, action was forbidden, the hands must be
folded in the attitude of prayer and meditation.
In these images, whether of the elect or the
condemned, of angels or of devils, expression was
generally obtained by means of contortions and
grimaces. " The whole period called Gothic," says
M. Menard, "was divided between two equally
286 FRENCH SCULPTURE.
vicious extremes — absolute rigidity or degrading
mannerism."
We must here remark that the Greeks aspired
not only to the true and the beautiful, but also to
right balance in the true and beautiful. Hence
the comparative calm of their statues, the absence
of all forced or painful expression, and even, if you
will, of tenderness. The Christians, on the contrary,
in their endeavour to supply the want of beauty —
condemned by their creed — by power of expression,
naturally fell into extremes ; and this fault, con-
tracted in the Middle Ages, characterised Christian
art until the time of Michael Angelo, of Bernini, of
Puget, and exists still in our own day, under the
name of mannerism.
However, taking into account the ideas univer-
sally entertained at this time, with regard to the
impossibility of representing the nude, the morti-
fication of the flesh, and the superiority of ascetic
piety over mobile beauty, we must acknowledge that
the lay artists of the Middle Ages at least, who had
more independence and individuality of character
than their religious brethren, did attain to a certain
excellence, a certain ideal, and in many cases even to
true and powerful expression. Beauty certainly was
wanting ; but, in the Vv-ords of M. Viollet-le-Duc,
" the .style and the thought were never at fault."
FRENCH SCULPTURE. 287
The artists were in perfect accord with the ideas of
their time. Art was indeed a reflection of society.
At the end of the twelfth century, and through-
out the whole of the thirteenth, sculpture became
more and more secular. It was no longer under
the direction of the monks, but of the bishops,
and the secular clergy proved themselves better
informed and more independent than the professed.
The bishops, less completely subject to the Pope
than the monastic body, resembled the feudal lords
under the monarchy before the latter acquired all
its centralised authority. The result of this in art
was the greater variety of subjects represented,
together with increased freedom in their treatment
from the thraldom of tradition. False and childish
legends were abandoned for the all but historical
facts of the Old and New Testaments.
The happy result of this new state of things was
the production of some fine pieces of statuary,
including groups, in which we already notice a
skilful arrangement of lines, a felicitous choice of
attitudes, with pure and devout expression. This
era resembles that of the /Eginetans in the history
of Grecian art. The time of crude efforts was past,
the true renaissance was dawning ; the age of full
liberty to the artist. Indeed, we recognise in this
progress of art the same love of independence
288 FRENCH SCULPTURE.
which, in the body poHtic, led to the institution of
communes. And this independence was often
carried to audacity. " The works of this time,"
says M. Viollet-le-Duc, " show a marked demo-
cratic tendency ; a hatred of oppression, which was
then spreading everywhere ; and, which is a nobler
sentiment, and renders them worthy of the name of
art, the liberation of the intellect from feudal and
priestly bondage."
The artists of this time were thoroughly well
acquainted with the laws of proportion in per-
spective. Their statues, groups, high and low
reliefs, are suited to the position they occupy ;
faulty if seen close, correct at a distance, they are
almost always intended to be looked at from below.
Their authors were also conversant with the laws of
light ; which was the more necessary, as many
sculptures of the eleventh to the fourteenth cen-
turies are coloured. We may add that the groups,
statues, and bas-reliefs were adapted to the amount
of light which would fall upon them ; in fact, at
that time, sculpture was still an adjunct, the prin-
cipal decoration of architecture. In speaking of
the monuments of this epoch we can neithci
separate the sculpture from the architecture, nor
the architecture from the sculpture.
Like the Mahommedan mosques, a Christian
FliENCH SCULPTURE. 289
cathedral was intended to be a representation of
the world, a cosmos. But after the downfall of the
iconoclasts, artists were free to represent all living
things, and the cathedral became a more complete
picture of the universe. We are therefore not
surprised to meet with an infinite variety of
ornaments ; a stone fiora, that is to say, plants
freely imitated with the chisel ; a fauna, that is,
animals of all sorts, mostly fabulous or chimerical,
and nearly always symbolical, such as the phoenix,
the griffin, the harpy, the basilisk, the salamander ;
together with men, saints, demons, angels, and
gods. It was in accordance with ideas of this kind
that the great cathedrals were constructed and
decorated at Rheims, Chartres, Amiens, Laon, Sens,
Paris, and in the central district formerly known as
the Isle of France, which M. Viollet-le-Duc justly
calls the " Attica of the Middle Ages."
After these general remarks, we will proceed to
notice those pieces of sculpture best known to
fame, which are mostly by artists whose originality
has rescued their names from oblivion ; who were
artists by nature as well as by education, combining
true genius with great delicacy and refinement.
Such were, in the fourth century, Jean Ravi and
his nephew, Jean Bouteiller, who, after the mis-
fortunes of the reign of Charles VI., and the ex-
U
290 FRENCH SCULPTURE.
pulsion of the English, worked together at a Life
of the Virgin, in bas-relief, round the cloister of
Notre-Dame at Paris ; the unknown author of the
fine tomb erected in the cloister St. Victor, by
Bishop Guillaume of Paris, to his cook Jacques ;
Hennequin de la Croix, author of the magnificent
mausoleum, dedicated by Charles V., Charles le
Sage, to his fool, Thevenin de St. Legier ; Conrad
Meyt and Andre Colomban, who executed the
tomb of Philibert le Beau, in the church of Brou ;
and lastly, Michel Colomb, or Michault Colomb
(143 1 to 1 5 14), author of the monument at Nantes
to Francois II. due de Bretagne (duke of Brittany)
and his wife Marguerite de Foix. He it is who has
the honour of giving his name to the first of the
rooms dedicated to the Renaissance in the Museum
of the Louvre. In the marble bas-relief attributed
to him he has introduced the Struggle between
St. George and the Dragon, in nearly high relief,
but in reduced proportions. The delicacy of work-
manship and the boldness of style in the figures of
the mail-clad Christian Perseus on horseback, the
scaly monster pierced by the lance, and the Princess
Theodelinda* kneeling in the distance, would have
done honour to Italy herself at this age. Whilst
Colomb was at work on this bas-relief and other
* (Qutere. S. Saba?— Tr.)
FBENCH SCULPTURE. 291
ornaments for the Chateau de Gaillon, built by
Cardinal Amboise, Jean Juste of Tours was making
a name by his tomb of Louis XII., and Jean
Texier by the forty-one groups or bas-reliefs of the
cathedral of Chartres ; the Marriage of the Virgin,
the Visitation, the Circumcision, the Massacre of the
Innocents, etc. "It is not Perugino whom we
recognise here," exclaims Emeric David, " it is
Raphael himself, as seen in the loggie of the
Vatican." Juste and Texier both lived earlier than
the Italians of Fontainebleau.
In the same room, near an alabaster statue of
Louis XII., in the costume of a Roman emperor,
by a Milanese sculptor, Demugiano, are two other
entirely French monuments. One is the tomb of
the celebrated friend of Louis XI. and Charles VIII.,
the historian, Philippe de Comines, who died in
1509, and of his wife, Helene de Chambres, who
followed him in 1531. The figures, of coloured
stone, are only half length, in the attitude of prayer
and they are so carefully chiselled and painted
as to be true portraits in full relief The other
monument consists of a pair of separate tombs, ol
Louis Poucher, secretary to the king, who died hi
1 52 1, and of his wife, Roberte Legendre, whose
death took place a year later. According to
custom, each figure lies on its back, with folded
292 FRENCH SCULPTURE.
hands and closed eyes ; the man, in warlike
costume, rests his feet on a lion ; the woman, in a
close-fitting cap and flowing robe, with no ornament
but a long rosary, uses a dog as a footstool. All
these details are common even to triteness, the
material, mere lias limestone, is not valuable, nor
do the insignificant names of the persons com-
memorated justify the exceptional measures taken
to preserve their tombs from oblivion. Do we even
know the name of the sculptor of these images }
No ; and the dates prevent us from attributing
them to Michault Columb, who died many years
before these worthies. Why then were their
monuments brought from the church of St. Ger-
main I'Auxerrois to the Museum of the Louvre .?
Because their unknown author has produced a
double miasterpiece, because the exquisite sim-
plicity of these memorial figures (of the woman
especially) is such, that they may be considered
models of French art before it was transformed
by Italian influence. They are fortunately well
preserved and uninjured.
Benvenuto Cellini was invited to France by
Francis I. at the same tinie as Leonardo da Vinci,
Andrea del Sarto, Rosso, and Primaticcio. We
have already noticed his NyjupJi of Fontamebleau
in our chapter on Italian sculpture ; it is in the
FRENOH SCULPTURE. 293
same room in the Louvre as Michael Angelo's
Captives. We may also mention a statue of
Friendship, by a certain Pietro Paolo Olivieri.
She half unbares her heart with one hand, a stranee
and far from pleasing fancy, intended to typify the
warmth and purity of her feelings. But does not
good taste condemn the use of physical symbols to
represent moral sentiments ? Is not expression the
only legitimate means at the artist's command for the
embodiment of his thought ? To attain to this is
the chief difficulty, but also the chief triumph of art.
At the same time that the Italians introduced
the grand style into France, a Frenchman took
rank amongst the first sculptors of Italy. This was
Jean de Bologne, born at D :iuai in 1524. He
lived at Florence, where he was called Giam-
Bologna ; but we have as- good a right to class
him amongst French sculptors as we have to con-
sider Claude and Poussin French painters. It was
probably a whim of the gloomy Michael Angelo
which led to his becoming a great artist. It is said
that the young Jean de Bologne, shortly after
his arrival in Italy, presented the old P^lorentine
with a very finely-finished plaster-work. Michael
Angelo broke it with a blow of his stick, and ex-
claimed : " Young man, learn to use the chisel
before finishing." Jean de Bologne left his cele-
294
FRENCH SCULPTURE.
brated bronze group of the Kape of a Sabine in the
Palazzo Vecckio, and several statuettes in the
museum Degl' Uffizi ; am.ongst others, a Jimo, a
Venus, an Apollo, a Vulcan, and the Alerairy,
Fig. 55. — The Flying Mercury.
known everywhere as that of Giam-Bologna. This
well-known Mercury, which has been often copied,
is a perfect masterpiece of lightness, equilibrium,
and grace ; and is as true to life as the Dojicing
FRENCH SCULPTUIiE. 295
FmiH of Pompeii, and the finest models bequeathed
to us by Grecian antiquity. The messenger of the
gods rests one foot upon a zephyr, and is about to
spring into the air. One of the rooms of the
Louvre is named after Jean de Bologne, because
for a long time the principal piece of sculpture
which it contains, the nearly colossal group of
Mercury carrying off Hebe, was attributed to him.
It is indeed a magnificent work, but we think it a
pity that it was not turned round the other \vay,
so as to let the light from the windows fall on to
the figure of Mercury instead of on that of Hebe.
The latter is, in fact, somewhat heavy, stiff, and
awkward, whilst the former is supple and agile,
with attitude and action alike well rendered. It
has been ascribed to Jean de Bologne, because it
resembles the wonderful little Flying Mercury of
Florence. But it is now called Mercury and Psyche,
and attributed to a certain Adrian of Vries, a
Fleming probably, who must have executed this
group at Prague in 1593, for the Emperor Rudolph 1 1.
We believe proofs have been found to justify
this change of authorship. This room should then
no longer be named after Jean de Bologne, but
after Michael Angelo, because it contains his
Captives.
To follow the progress and development of
296 FRENCH SCULPTURE.
French art, we must pass without pausing from the
room of Michault Colomb to that of Jean Goujon
(who hved about 1 530 — 1572). We shall see at
a glance that French statuary did not, like painting,
need to await the lessons of Italians, but that the
sculptors of the Renaissance took their inspiration
from the image-makers of the middle age.
A few choice works, by a great artist who is said
to have been lost to France in the massacre of
St. Bartholomew, have been reverently preserved.
The largest and most celebrated is the m^arble
group of Diana, made for the old but still beautiful
lady of Anet, Diana of Poitiers. On a pedestal
of strange shape, rather like a ship, adorned with
crabs, lobsters, and amorous figures, the goddess of
the chase, in a semi-recumbent position, leans upon
a stag with golden antlers, her golden bow in her
hand, her two guardian dogs beside her. This half
colossal and entirely nude figure, with the hair
dressed in the style of the day, is universally looked
upon as the portrait of the haughty rival of the
Duchesse d'Etampes and of Catherine de Medicis,
who ruled France until the death of Henry II. To
complete the group, two noble and powerful-looking
bronze hunting dogs, with drooping ears, have been
judiciously placed at either end. These fine dogs
are those described and represented in his book on
FRENCH SCULPTURE. 207
hunting- by Jacques du Fouilloux, huntsman to
Charles IX. They may be quoted as models of
race and also of the now flourishhig art of repre-
senting animals. The only other work in full relief
by Jean Goujon is a bust portrait of Henry II.,
framed in the ornaments of a chimney-piece
modelled by Germain Pilon.
But we have his bas-reliefs, in which, if we may
so express ourselves, he was more truly himself,
and excelled all rivals. We could imagine that
the great artist who was called the French Pheidias
and the Correggio of sculpture had really been able
to study the frieze of the Parthenon, so much do
his bas-reliefs resemble those of the Pheidias of
Athens, not only in their form, for they, too,
although the striking effect is not lessened, are
in very low relief, but also in the grandeur of style,
the correctness of drawing, and the grace and truth
of the attitudes. M. Alexandre Lenoir has repro-
duced Goujon's Deposition from the Cross in his
Miiseum of French Mojz?ime?zts, and there is no
paradox in his eulogium : " The Greeks produced
nothing more perfect," for none will deny its justice.
The Deposition from the Cross is now in the Louvre,
in the midst of the four Evangelists, with which it is
worthy to rank. Opposite these works of a sacred
style are others which are profane. These are. be-
298
FRENCH SCULPTURE.
tween two gracefully recumbent NympJis of the Seine,
a fine group of Tritons and Nereids playing on the
water. "Whence did he obtain these charming forms,"
»wi(iia^iwWH"H;f^^Sftj'-i^i HHt$?S(MinjKlAloiO ^WU^UM^i^ ''flTJ^f^
r ~(
. . , ■i.<^»L'i>.i!. Ill r . \^}}i"'
■\ ' " • '''Fr z.'jr~^_jii^z_ ■ ""
I'^i'lli^liii''' '■'■■I'i'iii iiii iilliiil.llm ii lllil'li'li i.tr.inn'.iif'mi
Fig. 56. — Fountain of the Innocents.
says Michelet, " these strange unnatural nymphs
with their immensely long and supple figures .'
Are they the poplars of the Fontaine-Belle-Eau, the
rushes of its stream, or the fantastic branches of
FRENCH SCULPTURE. 299
the vines of Thomery which have clothed the
human figure ?" (History of the Refor.) These
various bas-reHefs are in Has Hmestone, as well as
some other small figures of nymphs of the Seine
and of the Marne. There is but one marble bas-
relief, the small, but beautiful and powerful com-
position, called the Azvaking, which seems to me to
be rather g. symbolical representation of the Resur-
rection. A spirit has thrown down the torch of life
near a kind of nymph, who is awakening from
death, not from sleep. The allegory is as clear as
an allegory can be.
The sight of these beautiful works makes us
deeply regret that the bas-reliefs which are con-
sidered Jean Goujon's masterpiece are not also in
the Louvre. I allude to those of the Fontaine des
Innocents, now erected in the vegetable market.*
As it was very sensibly decided to take the best
groups or statues of the age of Louis XIV. from
the gardens of Versailles, in order to form the
museum of modern sculpture, as these works are
* This fountain was designed by Pierre Lescot, in 1550, and put
up at the corner of the Rue St. Denis and the Rue Aux Fers, and
Jean Goujon had then only sculptured the ornaments of the three
visible sides. In 17S8, the architects Poyet and Molinos -rnioved
it to the centre of the market, and -> fourth side became necessary
to make it complete. Pajou executed an imitation of the sculptures
of Jean Goujon.
300 F BENCH t^CULPTUBE.
now preserved fiom the ravages of time, some
traces of which were ah-eady visible, and as they
are not only under good shelter, but also in a place
where they are admired by better judges than the
few stragglers in the now deserted gardens, why
has not the masterpiece of the French Renaissance
of the sixteenth century had the honour of beincr
included in our national treasury ? Th(;re it could
be better kept, its exquisite details could be better
seen, it would be an object of study and admiration
for artists and amateurs of all nations ; in its turn
it would be visited by those better able to appre-
ciate it than the dealers in cabbages and lettuces,
who would feel as little regret for its loss as they
do pride in its possession. It is undecided what
shall be put in the middle of the square court of
the Louvre, which awaits. Heaven knows what —
some equestrian statue, probably, which a revolu-
tion will throw down, like those of Henri IV. and
Louis XIV. It is really useless to go to the
expense of bronze. Let the Fontame des Innocents
be set up in the court of the Louvre, in the centre
of the art collections. That is its true place, and
there it would remain as long as Paris is Paris.
It is customary to call Jean Goujon the restorer
of sculpture in France. Far be it from me to dispute
or detract from his glory. I would gladly own him
FRENCH SCULPTURE.
301
to be the creator of French statuary. But this title
can only be his in common with two other artists,
Jean Cousin and Germani Pilon. They may, indeed,
have preceded him. Although we do not know the
■"I>/Dl.,.J
^'S- 57- — Tomb of Pierre de Breze.
exact date of the birth of Jean Goujon, he is sup-
posed to have been born about 1530. Jean Cousin
and Germain Pilon were therefore his seniors by
some twenty and fifteen years respectively The
302 FRENCH SCULVTURE.
three were contemporaries, rivals, and fellow-
labourers in the common work of the French
Renaissance.
The fine tomb of Pierre de Breze, high seneschal
of Normandy, at Rouen, is attributed to Jean
Cousin ; but in the Louvre we have only one
piece of sculpture and one painting from his hand
— both, however, equally excellent. The former
is the Mmisolejwi of Philippe de Chabot, admiral of
France, which Cicognara calls the masterpiece
of French sculpture in the sixteenth century. The
semi-recumbent figure of the brave and noble
admiral leans upon the helmet with the left arm.
But the author of the Last Judgment and the Art
of Designing {U Art de Desseigner) \vz.?> so entirely
occupied in painting glass windows and writing
precepts, that he has only left a few easel paintings,
and still fewer sculptures. Chabot's mausoleum, if
it be indeed by Jean Cousin, combines in itself all
that gives value to art objects : it is a fine work, its
author is celebrated, and his productions are rare.
Germain Pilon (about 1515 — 1590) was a sculptor
only, and as industrious as he was skilful. There
was no need to rob the vaults of St. Denis of the
tombs of Francois I. and Henri II., for the Louvre
contains a large collection of his works. It pos-
sesses, for instance, the mausoleums of the Chan-
FRENCH SCULPTURE. 303
cellor of France, Rene Birague (or Birago, for he
was an Italian, like Gondi, Concini, and Mazarin),
and of Valentine Balbiani, his wife. It was of him
that Michelet said : " Birague, the man of the
St. Bartholoinew, who was so impatient to be a
cardinal, that he suddenly became a widower."
These tombs, with the two spirits extinguishing
their torches, originally formed one monument,
which is now divided. On one tomb the bronze
figure of the chancellor, in his long robes, kneels in
the attitude of prayer. It would perhaps be im-
possible to find a more natural and life-like bronze
statue. On the other tomb, which formed a kind
of pedestal to the former, the marble figure of
Valentine is extended, supporting herself on her
pillows, and reading the holy scriptures with down-
cast eyes. Near her is a little dog. What con-
stitutes the great originality of this monument, is
that the same person is seen in very low relief on
the front of the base, not now living and clothed,
but nude, emaciated, and lifeless. This admirable
bas-relief sculptured beneath the statue affords a
visible contrast between death and life ; it teaches
contempt for the flesh, it embodies the grand but
false idea of the Christians.
After this double mausoleum, the most celebrated
work of Germain Pilon is the group of three women
C04 FRENCH SCULPTURE.
supporting a gilt vase, intended, it is said, to con-
tain tiic hearts of Henri II. and Catherine de
Medicis. This group, which was chiselled in a
single block of marble, was ordered by the mother
of the three kings (Francois II., Charles IX., and
Henri III.), and placed by her in the church of the
Celestines. What does it represent .'' For a long
time it was called the Three Graces, and it is under
this name that it is known ; others, however, have
contended that they were meant for the three
Theological Virtues. Hence a learned controversy.
On the one side, in support of the old belief,
attention is called to the inscription of the word
Charities {')(apLTe<;), the Greek name of the Graces ;
whilst holders of the modern opinion have
replied that this name, badly written or badly
read, was merely Charity, and that the Christian
Virtues were more likely to be represented on
a sepulchral monument placed in a church than
the heathen Graces. Adhuc sub jiidice lis est. But
the latter supposition is the more probable.*
* "With regard to the Greeks," say MM. Louis and Reue
Menard, ' ' we must remark, that the great idea of which these
goddesses are the expression, has been generally ill comprehended
by the moderns, as is always the case with a synonym. The
word grace signifies both beneficence and elegance, and the former
meaning has been forgotten whilst the second has been adopted.
The inhabitants of Siena were nearer the truth when they took the
FBENCH SCULPTURE. 305
With this famous and puzzling gioup we will
notice four other figures, female also, but of wood,
which supported the shrine of St. Genevieve.
I shall not attempt to explain them, for according
to the adage, Niimero Dens impure gaudet, it is
difficult to find a religious meaning in the number
four. Together with the bust portraits of Henri
II., Charles IX., and Henri III., a small child's
bust (probably that of Catherine's other son, the
Duke of Alencon), and, lastly, a bas-relief in stone,
the Sermon of St. Paul at Athens, which formerly
adorned the pulpit of the Grand Augustines. We
have now mentioned all the works of the illustrious
Germain Pilon.
Amongst the works of the three founders of the
French school of sculpture are to be found two
monuments erected by Paolo -Ponzio Trebatti, of
Florentine oriein, who is often called Maitre Ponce.
three giaces for the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and
Charity ; and as the name of graces no longer suggests anything to
the mii.^ Francois Joseph Duret
(1804-), who has since produced the companion
groups of the Young Neapolitan Dancer, and the
Improvisatore at the Vintage. A Woiinded Dog, by
M. Emmanuel Frdmiet (1824-), which is merely a
sample of the numerous animals executed by him in
imitation of M. Barye. Minerva after the Judgment
of Paris, by M. Nicolas Marie Gattcaux (17S8-), who
332 FRENCH SCULPTURE.
was more celebrated and successful as an engraver of
medals, Miitius SccBvola, by M. Charles Theodore
Gruyere. The Gicardian Angel leading a Repentant
Sinner to God, by M. Jean Aristide Husson (1803-).
A Naiad, by M. Georges Jacquot (1794-). The
Prayer, and Modesty, by M. Leon Louis Nicolas
Jaley (1802-). Innocence, a young girl confiding her
first secret to Venus. A Young Girl Frightened by
a Snake, by M. Philippe Henri Lemaire (1797-).
Ariadne, by M. Aime Millet (1816-) ; for which his
Bacchant o( the: Universal Exhibition, 1855, would be
a good companion s-tatue. A Young Hunter Woimded
by a Snake, by M. Messidor Lebon Petitot (1794-).
The Luxembourg also contains a few works by
deceased sculptors. We find, for instance, a Vesta,
by Houdon ; a Pomona, by Dupaty (1771 — 1825) ;
a bas-relief of France, calling her children to her
defence, by Moitte (1746^1810) ; a Son of Niobe,
a Psyche, an Atalanta, by the Genevese James
Pradier (1794 — 1852), who is also the author of the
Fontaine Moliere in the Rue Richelieu ; and lastly,
the Young Fisher Playing with a Tortoise, a
Mercury, and a Joan of Arc, by Frangois Rude,
who is famous for numerous other works, such as
the powerful bas-relief of the Arc de Triomphe de
V Etoile, called the Departure, or the Marseillaise.
We regret not meeting with a single work in the
FRENCH SCULPTURE.
333
Luxembourg by the two Rameys, father and son ;
or by Foyatier, author of the celebrated Spartacus
of the Tuileries ; by Charles Simart ; Dantan the
younger, &c. But more inexplicable still is the
is;»';ii.6ii.T,;.„i....i 1
Fig. 6 1. —The Marseillaise, by F. Rude.
absence of Pierre Jean David, called David of
Angers (1789— 1856). The author of the pediment
of the Pantheon, of the monument Aux grands
334
FRENCH SCULP TUME
honimcs la Patrie Recoiinaissante, of the statue of
P hilopccmcn in the Tuileries, of Condi at Versailles,
of Corneille at Rouen, of La Fayette at Washington,
o{ Armand Carrel ^i St. Mande, where the famous
political writer was killed, and of the busts or
medallions of all the contemporary celebrities,
ought to occupy a distinguished place in the
Museum of France, especially when we remember
e-JfttfiaytXi
■ t^TOV^ ^ /tf.
Fig. 62. — Pediment of the Pantheon, by David.
that, like Puget and Poussin, he combined great
talent with a noble mind and an independent
spirit, and, like his illustrious predecessors, he has
left an example of a stainless life from birth to
death.
To carry our account of French sculpture down
to the present time we have only to add that
MM. Guillaume, Perraud, Carpeaux, Crauk, Fal-
guiere, Gumery, Aime Millet, Thomas, Paul
FRENCH SCULPTURE. 335
Dubois, &c., who obtained the highest distinctions
at the Universal Exhibition of 1867, have main-
tained their art on a level with that of French
painting, namely, in the first rank amongst all
nations.
AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
In the early days of our American history, al-
though the art of Painting excited a considerable
degree of enthusiasm, there was no corresponding
interest in the sister art of Sculpture. This is,
perhaps, the more worthy of notice, because the
early men were not indifferent to architecture,
and the styles of architecture which pleased them
best were the classic, to which, statuary is pop-
ularly supposed to be a natural ornament. Yet,
while buildings, public and private, in the style
which Wren and his scholars had introduced into
England, were put up in many of our cities and
larger towns ; and, while later, the fashion pre-
vailed all over the country of erecting Grecian tem-
ples to serve as churches, banks, mints, town halls,
and dwellings ; yet it was long before it was
proposed to adorn any one of these buildings
with sculpture, and long before an American was
born who showed any aptitude for making stat-
ues. The real reason of this neglect is to be
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 337
found in the poverty of the country. The build-
ings that we have referred to, although they were
often to be praised for a certain elegance and
dignity — the result of harmonious proportion
and simple well-executed details of ornamentation
— were nevertheless built of inexpensive mate-
rials, often of wood, and, when costliest, of brick
overlaid with stucco, or of a coarse-grained mar-
ble. But statues must be of marble, and of mar-
ble fetched from over seas ; and when the labor
of the sculptor was added to the price of the
material, there were few of the American com-
munities, hardly here and there an individual
citizen, who could afford the luxury of giving
commissions. At the very end of the last cen-
tury, however, the influences that were to have
the first shaping of sculpture in America had
begun to exert themselves. At the risk of seem-
ing to trifle with the subject, I shall mention
Mrs. Patience Wright, whose maiden name was
Lovell. She was born at Bordentown, New
Jersey, 1725, and made a considerable reputation
both at home, and afterward in England, as a
modeler in wax. In England, she made like-
nesses of many distinguished people, the king,
the queen. Lord Chatham, Temple, Barre, Wilkes,
and others. Dunlap, in his " History of the Arts
of Design in the United States," mentions meeting
22
338 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
Mrs. Wright in 1784, the year before her death.
At that time a full-length effigy in wax of Lord
Chatham, made by her, was standing in a glass
case in Westminster Abbey. She seems to have
been an artist of considerable natural talent,
but hard circumstances, the want of early instruc-
tion in art, and the absence of an art-atmos-
phere, both here and in England, made her inborn
desire a barren tree that bore no lasting fruit.
Her exhibition of wax-work figures was, we be-
lieve, the predecessor of Madame Tussaud's, and
was reckoned as one of the sights of London.
Mrs. Adams, in the first of her lively letters
written from England, where her husband was
ambassador to the Court of St. James, describes
in an amusing way her visit to Mrs. Wright
and her wax- work ; and, later, in a letter from
Philadelphia, Mr. Adams himself gives his wife
an account of some of the pieces which had been
sent over from England to this country to be
shown. Thus while West, — a great name at
that time, — Trumbull, and Stuart, and Stuart
Newton, were doing us honor with foreigners
and the English, in the art of painting, Mrs.
Wright was the only rival we had to offer to
Flaxman and NoUekens in sculpture. It was a
pity that she should have been more thought
of by the public, and we fear she was,' than a
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 339
genius like Flaxman, but we have no doubt that
she much better deserved the name of statuary
than the Hon. Anne Seymour Darner, of whom
flattering Horace Walpole made, or tried to make,
a tenth muse.
The next sculptor we hear of in America was
one whose fame rests mainly upon two statues
those of Washington and Voltaire, each of which
is held in high honor in the city for which it was
executed : the Washington for Baltimore, the Vol-
taire for Paris. This was Houdon, a Frenchman,
whom Franklin and Jefferson persuaded to come
to this country to make a statue of Washington
for the State of Virginia, to be placed in the
State House at Richmond. He arrived here in
1785, and visited Mount Vernon, at Washington's
request, where he took measurements of Wash-
ington's body, in the presence of Mr. Madison.
He executed a bust in marble of the General's
head, which he took back with him to France,
where the whole figure was put into marble from
the model made here. With this statue, which
still stands in the State House at Richmond, and
with Stuart's portrait, in the Boston Athenaeum,
we may believe we have the means of judging
how Washington looked ; all contemporary testi-
mony is unanimous in asserting that each artist
achieved a remarkable portrait of his illustrious
340 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
subject. Good casts from Houdon's statue are to
be seen in the Capitol at Washington and in the
Boston Athenaeum. The casts from the head alone
are very common. Houdon's original marble bust
was for a time in the possession of the sculptor
Henry K. Brown, who used it in modeling the
head of his equestrian Washington, in Union
Square, New York. Mr. Brown afterward sold it
to Mr. Hamilton Fish, who still owns it.
A few years later than Houdon, came John
Dixey, an Irishman by birth, but brought up in
London, where he was a student at the Royal
Academy, and he was among those selected to
be sent to Italy to finish their studies. But he
came to America instead, arriving here in 1789.
He was elected vice-president of the Pennsylva-
nia Academy of the Fine Arts in 18 10 or 18 12,
but he seems to have lived chiefly in New York.
He left behind him no work of any importance
so far as we can learn ; indeed, he seems to have
been principally occupied in ornamental stone-
cutting and in wood-carving. In wood-carving,
and in modeling in clay, William Rush, of Phil-
adelphia, earned considerable local reputation.
He was born in 1757, and died in 1833.
Next to Houdon in importance was another
foreign sculptor, an Italian this time, though well
known in France and England — Giuseppe Ce-
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 341
racchi. He was born somewhere about 1740, in
Rome, and was employed together with Canova
in designing and executing sculpture for the Pan-
theon, He left Italy for England in 1772, and
was well received, says Dunlap, by Reynolds, who
sat to him for his bust, and he became the teacher
in modeling and sculpture of Mrs. Damer, of
whom he made a full length statue as the Muse
of Sculpture. But though called upon to execute
a few unimportant works, he found so little to do in
England, where even the native sculptors earned
their bread with difficulty, that he returned, ac-
cording to some accounts, to Rome, and resumed
work as a sculptor. In 1 791, he came to Amer-
ica, where he did what he could to awaken an in-
terest in the fine arts, uniting himself with C. W.
Peale, the painter, and William Rush, the carver
in wood, in an abortive attempt to establish an
Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He
had also a scheme of his own for a mountain of
allegory which he would pile up somewhere in
marble in honor of Liberty. It was to carry out
this idea, in fact, that he came to America; but
however well disposed toward his scheme. Con-
gress had not the money necessary, and in 1 795
Ceracchi returned to Europe. During his short
stay he made several fine busts. One of Alex-
ander Hamilton, now in the possession of the
statesman's grandson, is deservedly admired.
342 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
Dunlap praises highly Ceracchi's bust of Wash-
ington, which was purchased of the artist by the
Spanish ambassador as a present for his king, but
he not caring for it, it remained with the ambas-
sador, of whose widow Richard Mead, of Phila-
delphia, bought it, and sent it back to America.
Dunlap speaks also of a bust of Jefferson, which he
says is at Monticello ; of another of George Clin-
ton, the governor of New York, and of busts of Paul
Jones and John Jay. This was a memorable four
years' work, and Ceracchi deserves to be gratefully
remembered for it. His after history is a melan-
choly one. He became fanatically interested in
the French Revolution ; and when the first Napo-
leon overthrew liberty, he joined himself to those
men who determined to rid the land of him by as-
sassination. He was accused of being concerned
in the plot of the infernal machine. This we be-
lieve is doubtful ; but there can be no doubt, we
fear, that he had plotted a more disgraceful crime,
— to poniard Napoleon while the First Consul was
sitting to him for his bust. But he was arrested
on the failure of the infernal machine, and was
guillotined in i8oi.
The names of a few other sculptors who came to
this country to practice their art may be here set
down, not because the work they left behind them
is of much importance, but because they no doubt
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 343
exerted some influence, however slight, in advan-
cing the general culture. A bass-relief in the Ro-
tunda of the Capitol at Washington is signed N.
Gevelot, 1827. The subject is Penn making his
treaty with the Indians. But we know nothing
more of this sculptor. Another tablet in the Ro-
tunda is signed A. Capellano, 1827. The subject
is Pocahontas saving Captain Smith. The same
sculptor carved the bass-relief in the pediment of
the Capitol, -^ a bust of Washington with Peace on
one side and Victory on the other, — and Dunlap
ascribes to him the statue on the column of the
battle-monument in Baltimore, and the bass-reliefs
on the pedestal. Two other bass-reliefs in the
Rotunda of the Capitol are signed Enrico Causici
of Verona, but without the date. Dunlap says that
it was he made the Washington for the monument
at Baltimore, and that he competed for the prize
of one hundred and fifty dollars raised by sub-
scription in 1 8 16, for a model of a statue of Wash-
ington to be placed in the Pennsylvania Academy.
The model was set up in the park in 1826. Cau-
sici called himself a pupil of Canova, but he ap-
pears to have had but little skill in his art.
In 1790 was born John Frazee, the first sculp-
tor of American birth, and parentage. He was
born at Rahway, New Jersey, and had a bitter ex-
perience of life in his early years. In 1815, he
344 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
lost his only child, a son, and having been brought
up as a mason and stone-cutter, he attempted to
forget his grief in making a portrait in marble of
his dead child. This was in 1815, and it was not
until 1820 that he saw a statue, and even then his
first idea of what could be done in sculpture was
gained at second hand by a sight of the plaster
casts from the antique sent by Napoleon to the
New York Academy of the Fine Arts. His por-
trait bust of his child procured him *an introduc-
tion to Trumbull, then president of the academy,
who graciously informed him that " nothing in
sculpture would be wanted in this country for a
hundred years." No wonder that Frazee ex-
claimed, " Is such a man fit for a president of an
academy of fine arts ! " There is no excuse for
Trumbull, who was himself an artist, but it is worth
remembering that about the same time (18 18) a
much greater and a clearer-headed man, John
Adams, wrote to Binon, a French sculptor, who
applied to him for permission to take his portrait
in marble : " The age of sculpture and painting
has not yet arrived in this country, and I hope it
will be long before it does so. I would not give
a sixpence for a picture by Raphael, or a statue by
Phidias." These were the old man's words, but
his acts were different. He invited Binon hospit-
ably to Quincy, sat to him for his bust, and showed
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 345
real kindness by consenting at his advanced age,
to have a mould taken of his face in plaster — a
most disagreeable experience. We may remark in
passing that Binon made a very characteristic bust
of Adams, which is now in Faneuil Hall, Boston.
Trumbull was discouraging to artists in his acts
as well as his words, and Frazee is not alone in
his condemnation of his manners. Mr. Frazee
made, according to Dunlap, the first marble bust
by a native hand. It was of John Wells, Esq.,
and was executed from imperfect profiles, after
the death of Mr. Wells. It was placed in Grace
Church, in New York. He gained much employ-
ment by this commission, and made busts from
the life of Chief Justice Marshall, Daniel Web-
ster, Dr. Bowditch, Jackson, Jay, and judges
Story and Prescott, with Thomas H. Perkins
and John Lowell, of Boston. In 1831, Frazee en-
tered into a partnership with Robert E. Launitz,
and it was with Launitz, in the marble yard where
he and Frazee had worked, that Crawford first
practiced his art.
From this time, the names thicken of Ameri-
cans who have won distinction at home as well as
abroad in the difficult art of sculpture. In the
year 1805 were born, Horatio Greenough and
Hiram Powers, — Powers a few months earlier than
Greenough, — two men who have exercised a very
346 AMERICAN SCULPTURE
wide, but a very different, influence on American
art, and on the art culture of Americans. Ar-
tist and scholar, Greenough has never had any
equal in America. Story is the only man that
can be compared to him, but Greenough excelled
Story in largeness of mind, and in the ardor and
energy of his nature. He died in 1852, at the
ripe age of forty-seven, having executed com-
paratively few works, but, one of them — the
Washington of the Capitol — a work which has
given him a place at the head of American sculp-
tors, among all who are accustomed to judge of
the productions of art by the success with which
they unite intellectual or moral qualities with that
beauty of line and form which, with many, is reck-
oned the only legitimate object of the artist. It
must always be remembered in looking at this
statue, that it was designed by the sculptor, to be
placed in the centre of the Rotunda, and that it
is seen to great disadvantage in its present posi-
tion in the open air. When Greenough learned
that the statue was to be removed from the place
for which he had intended it, he wrote : " Had I
been ordered to make a statue for any square, or
similar situation at the metropolis, I should have
represented Washington on horseback, and in his
actual dress. I would have made my work purely
an historical one. I have treated the subject
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 347
poetically, and confess I should feel pain at see-
ing it placed in direct and flagrant contrast with
every-day life. Moreover, I modeled the figure
without reference to an exposure to rain and frost,
so that there are many parts of the statue where
the water would collect and disintegrate and rot
the stone, if it did not by freezing, split off large
fragments of the drapery." The fears expressed
by the sculptor in this modest statement are seen
to-day to be fully justified, as the weather is tell-
ing seriously upon the statue year after year. Be-
fore long it will begin to show cruel signs of the
power of rain and frost. It ought to be restored
to its original place under the dome ; and if our
American artists have the sense we believe they
have of the merits both of the work itself and of
the man who made it, they will unite in a petition
to Congress, to have Green ough's earnest wish in
the matter carried out, even at this late day.
The statue of Washington is a colossal sitting
figure, nearly twice the size of life. The head,
chest, arms, and feet are bare, the lower limbs
covered with drapery, which is brought up over
the right arm. Washington with his right arm
points upwards, while with his left he holds out a
Roman sword, the action being symbolical of his
resignation of his commission, and of his recom-
mendation of his countrymen to the care and
348 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
guidance of God. The chair in which the hero is
seated is of a grand design, the back of open
work is an antique pattern, the sides carved with
bass rehefs of the infant Hercules stranghng the
serpent, and of Apollo guiding the chariot of the
sun. One end of the back of the chair, where it
rises above the sides, is supported by a statue of
Columbus contemplating a globe which he holds
in his hand ; the other end has for support an In-
dian chief. The whole is executed in the finest
Carrara marble, and with the most admirable
workmanship. Greenough made another statue
for the Capitol which he called " The Rescue."
It stands at the head of the steps leading to the
eastern entrance of the Capitol, and opposite the
statue of Columbus, made in 1844 by an Italian, L.
Persico. It typifies the conflict between the Amer-
ican and the Indian, by the rescue of a woman
and infant from the tomahawk of a savage, by a
brawny hunter. To Greenough must be given the
credit of having been the first American to exe-
cute a group in marble — " The Chanting Cher-
ubs " — and it is pleasant to associate with this
most beautiful work the name of Fenimore Cooper,
who both suggested the design, and gave Green-
ough the commission to execute it. The story
is, that the daughters of Mr. Cooper were engaged
in copying a print after the picture in the Pitti
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 349
Palace — the Madonna del Trono — which is
attributed to Raphael. In the foreground are
two cherubs, similar to those in the Madonna
di Foligno, who are singing from an open book
which they hold in their hands. Cooper asked
Greenough whether he did not find the cherubs
well suited for reproduction in marble ; and Green-
ough cordially assenting, the commission to execute
the design was given. It must not be supposed,
however, that the little group is a servile copy of
the figures in the picture. The idea is borrowed,
but Greenough, in rendering it in marble, has in-
fused into it a most tender and feeling beauty born
of his own nature. We cannot do better than to
quote the late Henry T. Tuckerman's description
of this group,^ which gives a very clear idea of
a work that, both on account of its intrinsic beauty
as well of execution as of design, and of its his-
toric importance as the first group of statuary by
an American hand, deserves to be placed in
some important public collection. "The scope
of the work," says Mr. Tuckerman, " is obviously
hmited. It consists merely of two nude cherubs.
Yet a careful scrutiny will reveal those niceties of
execution which proclaim the true artist. One of
1 7^e Book of the Artists. American Artist Life. By Henry
T. Tuckerman. New York, George P. Putnam & Sons, 1867, p.
256.
350 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
the figures is planted on its little feet, and its posi-
tion is upright ; his bosom heaves with a gentle
exultation, as if inspired by the song ; his com-
panion, quite as beautiful, is slightly awed ; one
has ringlets that suggest more strength than the
smooth flowing hair of his brother, whose face is
also longer and more spiritual and subdued ; he is
more up-looking, less self-sustained. A most true
and delicate principle of contrast, is thus unfolded
in the two forms and faces. The celestial and the
child-like are blended ; we realize, as we gaze, the
holiness of infant beauty ; a peaceful, blessed charm
seems wafted from the infantile forms, whose con-
tour and expression are alive with innocent, sacred,
and, as it were, magnetic joy." This group having
been long in the possession of Mr. Cooper, passed
afterwards into the hands of the late John L.
Stephens, with whose family we believe it still re-
mains.
Hiram Powers was born in Woodstock, Ver-
mont, July 29, 1805. His family emigrated from
Vermont to western New York, and thence to
Ohio. His early life was passed in a variety of
employments, chiefly mechanical ; every sculptor
is a mechanic by nature, his art is the child of
Vulcan and Venus ; and he gained experience as a
collector of debts, as keeper of a reading-room, in
tending a steam-engine, and as workman in a clock
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 351
factory. Afterwards a talent for modeling develop-
ing itself in him, he was engaged by the owner
of a show to make wax figures for it, and these
were so clever that the exhibition gained a great
local repute. Still later Powers made and exhib-
ited a horrible spectacle called the " Infernal Re-
gions," in which he combined his mechanical turn
with his artistic skill ; and with dancing devils,
advancing and retreating demons, grim skeletons,
and the sheeted dead, made the not over particular
hair of western backwoods audiences stand on end-
This was not a very promising beginning, and it
must be confessed that Powers' art has always
savored more of the mechanical and the sensa-
tional than of the purely artistic ; but he did hon-
estly and energetically what he found to do ; and
when he had once found out that there was an art
of sculpture, he labored long and earnestly accord-
ing to his gift, to win a high place in the field.
He has long enjoyed a reputation that we cannot
believe time will confirm, as the first of Ameri-
can sculptors. That must be the reward of the ar-
tist who can produce the noblest ideal work ; it
can never be earned by the making of busts, how-
ever fine ; and some of Powers' busts are among
the finest made in modern times. His " Greek
Slave " once enjoyed a fame that seems aston-
ishing to those who look back upon it ; but we
352 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
must remember that it came for judgment to a
public full of honorable enthusiasm for the work
of its native artist, but very ignorant of art, be-
cause it had never seen a masterpiece. His bust
of Proserpine is the best result of his search for
the ideal ; but his final reputation will not be made
up from a consideration of any of the once eulo-
gized, now forgotten marbles, the Greek Slave, the
Fisher Boy, the Eve, the America, California, Pen-
seroso ; it will rest, we venture to think, entirely
upon a few manly and characteristic busts.
In 1810, Joel T. Hart was born. He is a native
of Kentucky, and has resided since 1849 in Flor-
ence. He made a statue of Henry Clay, which is
in Louisville, in his native State, and he has also
designed several ideal figures, none of them of
any great value as contributions to art ; but showing
careful study of the human form, and considerable
skill in the mechanics of his profession. He has
invented a clever machine by which the labor of
transferring the model to marble will be greatly
lightened.
Three years later Thomas Crawford was born in
New York, March 22, 1813. Crawford's work is
of considerable importance, and if it must be con-
ceded that he worked too fast, and that much of
his production is marked by too superficial thought,
yet it must also be acknowledged that, like Green-
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 353
ough — though with far inferior mental and artis-
tic power — he was a worshipper of the poetry
of his art ; busts and portraits were the drudgery
of the studio ; he wanted to put ideas into marble,
a high aim, but sometimes dangerously alluring the
artist into regions where he cannot travel with
profit to himself or the world. Crawford began to
work in the marble yard of Launitz, who had
been the partner in business of Frazee. He then
went to Italy, where the good Thorwaldsen, who
encouraged everybody, helped him with cheerful
auguries ; and with earnest study of the best
models, and close application, he fitted himself
to bring all his powers into play in his chosen pro-
fession. Greenough had learned modeling of Bi-
non^ a Frenchman who resided a long time in
Boston, and of whom we have already spoken as
the author of a bust of John Adams. Powers
was taught by a German, a mechanic rather than
an artist. Crawford was the first American who
had a thorough training from the start, and it
stood him in good stead. One of his first works,
the Orpheus descending into Hell to seek Eury-
dice, now in the Boston Athenaeum, was, we believe,
a commission from Charles Sumner, who always
cherished a lively interest in the work of his pro-
t6g6. It is to our thinking — all deductions made
for the defects in execution of a first youthful
23
354 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
work — one of Crawford's most original and poetic
statues. Next to it, perhaps, comes one made much
later, the Indian Chief, which makes part of the
group in the pediment of the Capitol at Washing-
ton, and of which a repetition is in the New York
Historical Society building. This is the figure
which Gibson, the English sculptor, admired so
much that he proposed it should be cast in bronze
and set up as a monument to Crawford in Rome.
Crawford's work at Washington comprises, with
the exception of the Equestrian Washington at
Richmond, and the Beethoven of the Music Hall,
Boston, his principal performance. We have there
the pediment of one of the Capitol wings, with its
rather incongruous assemblage of allegorical realis-
tic figures, typifying, perhaps, the growth of Amer-
ican civilization, but in a disconnected, alphabetic
fashion. The separate figures are conceived in a
manly, free spirit, and make allegory as tolerable
as it can be made. There are the School-master
and the School-boy, the Merchant, the Woodman,
the Indian Hunter, and the Sailor ; each is doing
what he pleases, and necessarily careless of the
occupation of the others. This is not to make a
group for a pediment, it is merely to force statues
into a given space, and lacking the necessary
unity of idea, and the moral as well as the artistic
connection of the assembled personages, it must be
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 355
admitted a failure as a pediment. Nor can we say-
much in praise of the much criticised " Liberty "
that crowns the dome of the Capitol. This is a
heavy, unmeaning figure, rendered still more un-
graceful and incongruous by the helmet adopted,
after much discussion, by the artist as a substitute
for the Cap of Liberty with which he had originally
covered the head of the goddess, but with which
Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, was discon-
tented. There can be but little doubt, we should
think, that both on artistic and moral grounds the
secretary was wrong. He had a show of sense in
his argument, that the liberty cap was not a fit
emblem for a people who had been born free, and
who had never been enslaved ; but the liberty cap
is an accepted type, and could hardly have been
misunderstood, while its simple form makes it very
effective in the hands of the artist. At all events
the substitute adopted has a very uncouth effect.
It is a combination of an eagle's head and a bold
arrangement of feathers, but it has neither mean-
ing nor artistic beauty.
Crawford died in London, October i6, 1857,
in his forty-fourth year. The cause of his death
was a tumor that formed on the inner side of the
orbit of the eye. His remains were brought to
America and buried in Greenwood Cemetery, De-
cember 5, 1857. He left the carrying out of his
356 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
unfinished works to his friend and fellow-sculptor,
Randolph Rogers, and on the return of Mrs. Craw-
ford to Italy, she offered the entire collection of
casts from her husband's sculptures to any insti-
tution in America, that would pay for bringing
them from Italy, and would agree to put them in a
suitable building for free exhibition. This has
since been done by the Commissioners of the Cen-
tral Park, who have arranged the casts in the
chapel of what was once the Convent of Mt. St.
Vincent. The casts are too crowded in their pres-
ent situation to be well seen, but when the newly
projected building for the Museum of Fine Arts is
finished they will be more fairly treated. Seen
thus, collected into one room, crowded together
and badly lighted, they yet give the impression of
a decided talent in the sculptor, of a vigorous mind
trying earnestly to express itself in various direc-
tions, but nowhere satisfying either itself or us.
Certainly, we look in vain among all these figures
for one that will dwell in the memory. It is mel-
ancholy to record that so much enthusiasm, such
high-hearted endeavor, such love of his art, should
have left so little that will make the sculptor's
name dear to the coming time. What is good,
endures, however, and there are qualities in some
of the works of Crawford, that will be respected to
the end, though the verdict on his collective per-
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 3o7
formance should fall short, as we think it surely
will, of the high estimate his friends have placed
upon it.
Henry Kirke Brown was born at Leyden, Massa-
chusetts, in 1 8 14, a year later than Crawford. He
was drawn first to painting by I know not what
influence, and when eighteen years old went to
Boston to study with Chester Harding, with whom
he stayed three years, but, as Tuckerman tells us,
while modeling the head of a lady, he found he
liked sculpture better, and henceforth gave his
time almost exclusively to that art. He is how-
ever, so essentially an artist that his giving him-
self up to sculpture was rather a concession, in-
stinctive, probably, and unconscious, to the public
opinion that demands a man should be one thing
and stick to it, than such a decided preference for
that particular form of art as would make it impos-
sible for him to express himself in any other way
than by statue-carving. For Brown is an excel-
lent painter, having produced several pictures —
particularly some portraits of horses — that show
he might have made himself a name with his brush,
and he has the making of a good architect in him
beside, and is at home in almost all the mechanic
arts. In 1837, being then twenty-three years old,
he went to Cincinnati with Dr. Willard Parker,
under whom he had been studying anatomy, and
358 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
it was there he made his first marble bust. In
1840, he returned to the east, and divided two
years between Albany and Troy. This was a busy
time, for we learn from Tuckerman that in those
two years he made forty busts, beside other work.
In 1842, he left America for Italy, and remained
there for four years, returning home in 1846.
While in Italy, he did much work for private per-
sons — statues, mostly of the ideal sort, " Adonis,"
" David," " Ruth," " Rebecca," of which the pub-
lic knows little, and which doubtless had no es-
sential reason for being ; no reason of any sort,
except the money-making one, the root out of
which most modern statuary springs, and which
sets most young sculptors at work. Brown, how-
ever, was not to remain long tied to such perform-
ances ; the real is his chosen field ; the real and
the present ; and it is there that he has made
his reputation. After his return to America he
lived for some time in Brooklyn, and it was in his
studio there that the statue of Washington, now
in Union Square, was modeled, and the bronze
chiseled and set up after having been cast at
Chicopee. This statue first made Brown known to
the general public, and gave him that place as
chief American sculptor which, up to this time, he
easily holds. It is a noble monumental work, sim-
ple in conception, resting in the truth, the sculp-
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 359
tor's aim, and satisfying the eye from whatever
point of view. It is not a mere correct perfunc-
tory performance, but, lively and full of fire, the
horse a strong high-mettled beast, looked at with
pleasure daily by horse-loving and horse-knowing
men and boys, the rider a hero not of the stage or
the circus-ring, but of history and common sense.
The artist contemplating this work without prej-
udice, acknowledges its kinship with Verocchio's
CoUeoni and Donatello's Gattemelata. I may re-
mark in passing that Mr. Tuckerman's statement
("Book of the Artists," p. 575), that "it (the stat-
ue) was projected by Horatio Greenough, who
was to have undertaken it with Brown, but finally
abandoned the enterprise alter having efficiently
])romoted the enterprise," is founded on an entire
misunderstanding, for which, however, there is no
excuse, since the writer had only to have made a
slight examination to have discovered the facts.
Mr. Greenough had nothing whatever to do either
with projecting the statue, or with promoting the
subscription, nor was he to have undertaken it
with Brown. Mr. Lee projected the statue and
secured all the subscriptions. The work was
offered in the first place to Mr. Brown alone ; after-
ward, a proposition was made to him to admit Mr.
Greenough, for whom he had an affectionate admi-
ration, to a sort of artist partnership ; but, such a
360 AMERTCAX SCULPTURE.
partnership, hardly Hkely to prosper under any
circumstances, was made impossible in this affair
by Mr. Greenough's mental condition. He be-
haved in a manner so unaccountable, that Mr.
Brown withdrew from the enterprise, but in a few
weeks it appeared that Greenough's conduct, so
inconsistent with his noble and generous nature,
utterly unselfish, and free from mercenary taint,
was sadly explicable. A few weeks later he was
carried to an asylum for the insane, where he
shortly after died.
Another fine statue by Brown, though belong-
ing to an earlier period, is the recumbent figure
of the late Shippen Bird in St. Stephen's Church,
in Philadelphia. I have never seen another statue
of this class that seemed to me so perfectly to
render the beauty of death. Hundreds of people
go every year to this church to look at the fine
group by Steinhauser, in memory of the children
of Mr. Bird, who pass Brown's statue with slight
notice. Something of this neglect is, no doubt,
owing to its unsuitable position, but its simplicity
and the quiet voice with which it speaks to the
passer-by has also much to do with it. Brown's
latest statue, the General Scott, is soon to be set
up in Washington, an event on which we congrat-
ulate the Capitol and all lovers of Art. The
statue of General Greene, for which Brown re-
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 361
ceived the commission from the State of Rhode
Island, is at present in the old Representatives
Hall, in the Capitol at Washington, where one should
go who wishes to see how like a magnet a free
and royal work of art draws all beholders, and
blots out of existence a room full of mediocrities
or worse. We leave out of this condemnation the
plaster cast of Houdon's Washington, and a figure
of Roger Williams, by Simmons, which latter is
a respectable work in point of execution and
pose, though unsatisfactory as a conception of the
founder of Rhode Island. No one who has seen
the statue of General Greene will question, we
should think, that it is one of the finest statues of
our time; it rejoices every beholder. In 1858,
Mr. Brown received a commission from the State
of South Carolina to make a group of thirteen
figures for the pediment of the State-house to be
built at Columbia. While the sculptor was en-
gaged upon the work, having gone to Columbia
with his wife, to carry out the commission on the
spot, the War of Secession broke out, and the
work was interrupted when near completion.
When Columbia was burnt, the State-house went
to destruction with the rest, and all the finished
statues, with all the studies, casts, drawings, and,
indeed, the greater part of Brown's possessions in
this world, were destroyed at the same time. Pros-
3G2 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
trated by a serious illness, in nearly ruined cir-
cumstances, and in an enemy's country, many a
man would have lost heart and hope, but Brown
is of too male a strain for that. He came back
to the North, and took up life again where he had
left it, with that strong serenity, that quiet con-
fidence, that silent delight in work, that make his
name mean what it does to those who know him.
Henry Dexter, whose work does not need the
recommendation that it is produced by a man
who never had the least instruction, who never
saw a sculptor strike a blow on a block of mar-
ble, and who never had an assistant, but has done
everything with his own hands — is one of the
best of our sculptors in his special branch of por-
traiture ; we owe to him a large number of busts
of well-known Americans — strong, individual,
truthful work, which will long keep in memory the
sculptor, and the men and women who have sat to
him. The well-known Binney monument in Mt.
Auburn Cemetery, the recumbent figure of the
little child who lies buried beneath, is the best
known of Mr. Dexter's works. As our cities
grew in size, and the people, used to taking
holiday in the suburbs, began to find themselves
cut off from their walks and drives by the en-
croaching shops and houses, there sprang up first
in Boston, then in Philadelphia, last in New
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 363
York, the fashion of great public cemeteries, the
sad forerunners of our later parks. The first
of these was Mt. Auburn, and it soon became a
great resort. It was a spot of considerable nat-
ural beauty, and it was skillfully laid out in walks
and drives. Some of the earlier monuments were
remarkable for the good taste displayed in them,
and gained much local fame. The tomb of the
celebrated Spurzheim was a careful copy of the
tomb of Scipio ; the tomb of one branch of
the Appleton family was a delicately designed
Greek temple, made in Italy of the finest white
marble, and was called " The House of Death,"
but the marble figure of the little Binney child,
lying in a sweet and peaceful slumber, was the
chief attraction to the greater number of vis-
itors. Not only was it the first marble statue
placed in Mt. Auburn, but it was, we believe, the
first statue made in the United States, by an
American who had never been abroad. One who
in boyish days has often visited the cemetery for
the pleasure of seeing that statue, thinks of the
place always as the green home of that little child,
the baby-leader of the great company that has
since come to share its pleasant resting-place.
Henry Dexter was born in the town of Cazenovia,
in the part now called Nelson, Madison County,
New York, on the nth of October, 1806. When
364 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
he was twelve years old, his father died, and his
mother and sisters went to live in Connecticut.
The boy had the usual training : went to school-
in the winter, and worked on a farm in the sum-
mer. His mother wanted to make him a minister ;
her friends pushed him to a trade, and succeeded
in getting him apprenticed to a blacksmith. Never
was a more striking instance of the impossibility
of driving out Nature, who yielded no more to the
Connecticut forge-hammer than of old to the
Roman pitchfork. We cannot here tell Dexter's
story at length, but it is good to read in his own
words, in Tuckerman's book. Francis Alexander,
the portrait-painter whose own experience in youth
had been hard enough, was Dexter's earliest ad-
viser and helper — not a flattering friend, rather
chilling and depressing than encouraging, until he
saw the boy's steadfast temper and firm will ; then
he did his best to open a way for him. The first
bust he made in marble was that of the Hon.
Samuel Eliot. At that time Dexter had never
handled a block of marble, and had no one to show
him how to go to work. But he bought the mar-
ble, and when the bust was finished, not knowing
its value, he left the payment to Mr. Eliot, who
generously gave him two hundred dollars for it,
and afterward added fifty dollars more. This, says
the modest artist, was the way I became a sculp-
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 365
tor. In 1859, ^^- Defter formed the design of
making the busts of the President and of all the
Governors who were in office on the ist of January,
i860. To make his studies, he was obliged to
visit all the States except California and Oregon,
but, difficult as the undertaking was, it was brought
to a good ending, and when all the busts were set
up in the Rotunda of the Boston State House,
thirty thousand people, says Tuckerman, went to
see them. If they are all as fine as the bust of
the late Mr. Felton, or as that of Chief-Justice
Chase, we must think the thirty thousand people
saw a very uncommon sight. Mr. Dexter, now
in his sixty-sixth year, has his studio in Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, and is still actively work-
ing.
Erastus D. Palmer, was born in Pompey, Onon-
daga County, New York, April 2, 18 17. His
parents were farming people, but the boy had a
strong bent to mechanical arts ; was " born with a
thumb," as the country people say, and went out
into the world at the age of seventeen, to find em-
ployment as a carpenter. He worked long at this
trade, and in the small leisure that steady employ-
ment gave him, tried his hand at cutting on a shell
a cameo portrait of his wife. Even in this first
effort of an untried hand, the artist was discov-
ered, and he soon found that more people were
366 AMETHCAN SCULPTURE.
eager to have his cameos, than he had strength of
eyes to serve. For, in two years, the incessant
application to a labor that demanded absolute
steadiness of eye, so wearied that delicate organ
as made it necessary for him to give up his cameo-
cutting. " Good," said one who heard of it ; " we
shall now have a sculptor in exchange for a maker
of brooches ! " And, in fact, Palmer, with energy
and longings for art not to be thwarted, took up
modeling in clay, and soon after produced a small
work in marble, " The Infant Ceres." This was
the beginning of a long prosperity, for Palmer's
work was popular from the first, and the pleasure
taken by the people in his statues and bas-reliefs,
has never flagged. " The Infant Ceres," first ex-
hibited at the Academy of Design, was followed
by several bas-reliefs, " The Morning Star," " The
Evening Star," " The Spirit's Flight," then, busts
called " Resignation," and " Spring," all of these,
sweetly pretty girlish or childish heads without
much individuality, and which were hurt a little
by their fine names. Soon, Palmer attempted a
statue, and the " Indian Girl," and " White Cap-
tive," were hailed by the public with extravagant
praise — praise that their own merit, great indeed
compared with that of most of the home sculpture
already produced, has helped us to outgrow. This
is not to depreciate Palmer's work, which has its
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 3G7
own undeniable excellences, but to substitute mod-
eration for the extravagant eulogy that is so much
the fashion. Palmer has great skill in working
marble, but it is a skill better suited to small
works than to large ones, as indeed is also the
artist's invention. The " Indian Girl," and the
" White Captive," are better studies from the nude,
than is Power's " Greek Slave," but they are hardly
more alive, and the soft pretty style of handling
makes them look tamer still. We hear much of
Palmer's theories, of his indifference to the an-
tique, and dislike of mannerism, of his receipt for
hair and eyes ; but his theories are of small value
when his work is here to show us how little they
stand him in stead. Just what Palmer never gave
one of his statues, busts, or bas-reliefs, is a fine,
well-opened eye, and though his hair is sometimes
soft enough, it has never strength nor character.
For mannerism, too, that does not come out of
Academies, nor can it be shied by turning one's
back on Italy. It comes out of the man himself,
and is likelier to be strengthened than weakened
by rejecting the experience of other men and ages.
No American sculptor of note is more mannered
than Mr. Palmer, albeit his manner has proved
pleasing to a very large number of people.
William Wetmore Story, was born in Salem,
Massachusetts, February 12, 18 19. His father
368 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
was Chief Justice Story, a great name in Massa-
chusetts, and in the history of the American bar,
for learning and character. The career of his son
has never been hindered by any of the material
wants and anxieties that have made life so hard a
school to many of our best artists. When he
was born, Competence received him into her lap ;
he was tenderly nurtured, and well taught ; he was
a graduate of Harvard, and after leaving college,
studied law and wrote treatises on law matters ;
he did not, however, feel specially drawn in that
direction, but rather to the arts. He wrote poet-
ry, and has always continued to write it, but the
world has not much cared for his performances
that way ; we are always thinking we have heard
the strain before, in Browning, in Tennyson, in
De Musset. As a writer of prose, Mr. Story has
had a larger audience, and would have had a larger
still, for his book about Rome, if he had known
how to be less diffuse, and to digest his multifa-
rious learning better. We have heard it said that
Mr. Story would prefer to be reckoned a poet
rather than a sculptor, but the world, so far as it
knows him at all, knows him by his statues,
though the American public has had little chance
to become acquainted with him this way, seeing
that few statues by him, and none of those in
which his friends take most pride, have been ex-
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 369
hibited on this side the water. His earHest work,
a full-length statue in marble, of his father, is in
the chapel at Mt. Auburn ; it is a respectable per-
formance, but nothing more, though when it was
made it caused some flutter, no Chief Justice's
son in that quarter having done the like before.
There is also a bronze statue of Edward Everett
in the Boston Public Garden, and here, we think,
the artist has done all that was possible with his
subject ; the likeness is undeniable, and the action
characteristic. It has been much joked over, but
unjustly, for there is life and personality in it, and
these are much to find in a statue nowadays.
Many Americans, too, have seen the bronze statue
of George Peabody in London. These three are,
we believe, the only important works of Story that
are to be found outside of private houses, at home
and abroad. In the great Exhibition of 1862 —
Brompton — two statues by Story were more
looked at and more admired, than any other two.
These were the " Libyan Sibyl " and the " Cleo-
patra," — the latter now in the possession of John
Taylor Johnston, of New York. Another statue,
" Sappho," belongs to Mr. Peterson, of Philadel-
phia. These three are Mr. Story's best works, and
though the time has not yet come to judge them
fully — for no statue nor work of art, of whatever
kind, can be fully judged until it has stood in the
24
870 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
light of the pubHc square — the final verdict will
probably be that his work shows culture, study,
native refinement, and talent of an elegant, schol-
arly sort, but little imagination and little creative
power.
Thomas Ball, born in Charlestown, Mass., June
3, 1 8 19, is known to the pubhc chiefly by his
equestrian statue of Washington, set up not long
ago in the Boston Public Garden. It is a manly
work, faithful in portraiture, carefully studied, a
conscientious performance, having much the same
interest to us as the Houdon statue — the straight-
forward truthfulness of the daguerreotype. Mr.
Ball, who has long lived in Italy, began life as a
painter, and made some mark in that direction ;
he is a man of many accomplishments, has a fine
voice, and was at one time counted a remarkable
singer. As a sculptor his name has not been so
much in men's mouths as that of some others, but
those who knov/ his works know that they are in
the best sense " works " ; they are not trifling, mer-
cenary performances, but sincere and earnest —
the artist putting his best self into them, and thus
making sure in every case of a result with its own
value, and that lasting.
John Quincy Adams Ward was born in Urbana,
Champaign County, Ohio, June 29, 1830. His
father was a well-to-do farmer, working his own
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 371
three hundred acres, and his son had the usual
advantages in the way of schooUng that were open
to boys in those days, in what was then the Far
West. His father knew the vakie of education,
but he had sense to see that it does not all come
from books, so that young Ward, getting the rudi-
ments of learning easily in the winter schooling,
learned as easily in the out-of-door summer ses-
sion held by Dame Nature, all the athletic arts, and
could ride, drive, shoot, swim, and skate, with the
best of his fellows. But Nature had a fine les-
son to teach her boy,^ and wooed him by means of
a clay bank and a friendly potter, up through the
low degrees of pots and pipkins, to pots orna-
mented with bas-rehef ; then to ingenious toys in
which the future talent for the real is seen in bud,
" churches, saw-mills, and whole villages of people,
and a representation oi a train of cars, then a
novelty to western villagers." Later he gets hold
of some wax out of which his sister had meant to
make flowers, carries it off by stealth to the fields,
and there in a shady spot works day after day
fashioning without a model and without instruc-
tion, getting hints from engravings mainly, a
small female figure. As he grew older, his dis-
1 For a readable, accurate sketch of Ward's life thus far, see an
article by M. D. O'C. Townley, in Scribner's Monthly, August,
1871, to which I am much indebted for my own condensed ac-
count.
372 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
inclination for the farm-life showed itself plainly ;
his family gave him permission to study medicine,
but this suited him no better ; finally, as often
happens to growing boys restrained by kind un-
wisdom from a natural bent, he fell ill, and his
good sister, divining his trouble, went to Henry
K. Brown, and asked his help in making a
sculptor of her brother. Mr. Brown, with great
good sense, discouraged the boy at first, but in a
'wz.y that showed him the door was not shut, and
later in the year, after Ward had made proof that
he could do something, he entered Brown's studio
in Brooklyn, and remained with him seven years.
While with Brown, Ward assisted him in making
the " Washington," in Union Square, and after-
ward, having taken the studio as his own when
Mr. Brown left Brooklyn, he made there the
model of the " Indian Hunter," and of " Simon
Kenton," the pioneer of Ohio. In 1859, during
a visit to Washington, he made busts of John
P. Hale, Joshua Giddings, and Alexander H.
Stephens, and he also produced copies in bronze
of the " Indian." In 1863 Ward was elected a
member of the Academy, and in 1864 he completed
the setting up of his " Indian " in clay. Later it
was exhibited in New York in plaster, and in 1867,
having been cast in bronze, it was sent to the
memorable Paris Exposition of that year, where it
A^fERICAX SCULPTURE. 373
was one of the very few works of art from America
that received any notice from the French artists
and critics. When it was brought back to New
York it was placed in the Central Park, having
been purchased by the commissioners. Ward's
statue in bronze of Commodore Perry, a commis-
sion from a gentleman who married into the Perry
family, has been set up at Newport, Rhode Island,
and another bronze, like that of Perry, of heroic
size, — a young soldier in the uniform of the
Seventh Regiment, New York State Militia, a
commission from the Seventh Regiment, — has
been set up in the Central Park as a memorial of the
part played by the regiment in the war. " The
Good Samaritan," carved in granite, — a most un-
satisfactory material for a statue, — was a commis-
sion executed by Ward to commemorate the Mor-
ton-Jackson application of ether as an anaesthetic.
It is one of the sculptor's best works but it never
will be known until it is taken down from the ab-
surd pedestal on which it is hoisted in the Public
Garden in Boston, and placed on a pedestal which
shall bring it, as every statue ought to be brought,
on a level with the eye. Ward's latest statue is
the " Shakespeare," long ago finished, but not set
up in the place destined for it in the Park until
April of the present year, 1872. The statue has
been variously criticised, but, on the whole, Ward
374 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
is reckoned to have met the difficulties of the prob-
lem he had to solve with more success — if suc-
cess can be comparative — than could have been
looked for. Next to the " Indian Hunter," the
" Shakespeare " is Ward's best work, and there
can be no doubt that it has much increased his
reputation.
Here we close our too slight notice of the Amer-
ican sculptors, for lack of space forbids our taking
up every name. Launt Thompson, though born
in Ireland {1833), and not seeing America until
he was fourteen years old, has yet so identified
himself with America, that his name should not
be omitted from any list of American sculptors,
though no one work of his stands out very
strongly from the general. A rather exaggerated
bust called " The Trapper," a head of Booth as
Hamlet, in which the formality and fatal lack of
facial expression of the original are well repre-
sented, and a colossal statue of Napoleon the
Great, made for one of the Emperor's old soldiers,
are the best known of Mr. Thompson's works.
The small groups in plaster, made by John
Rogers of Salern, Mass., the subjects drawn from
the war and from every-day American life, have
had such an immense popularity that the making
of them has become a regular business, and brings
him in a large income. Two or three of them have
AMERICAN SCULPTURE. 375
considerable artistic merit, and in many of them
there is a certain cleverness and naturalness that
justify the popular liking. They are certainly a
godsend to the public with small means to expend
on works of art that has so long been wearily
stranded on the abominable casts of Venuses and
Apollos with the Canova Graces.
Names of more significance are those of Shobal
Vail Clevenger, born at Middletown, Ohio, in 1812,
died at sea, September 28, 1843 ; Edward Sheffield
Bartholomew, born at Colchester, Connecticut,
1822, died at Naples, May 2, 1858 ; and Benjamin
Akers, known as Paul Akers, born at Saccarappa,
Maine, July 10, 1825, died at Philadelphia, May 21,
1 86 1. These three were artists, born with the true
temperament of genius, and able to have made
a strong mark upon the world had not ill-health
stayed their hands and baulked their efforts. Of
the three, Bartholomew accomplished perhaps the
greatest amount of actual work, and, thanks to the
collection of his casts and marbles preserved at
Hartford, his performance can be studied and
rated at its just value as that of no other Amer-
ican sculptor can, unless it be Ward, whose best
works are in the Central Park, and Crawford, of
whose statues there is a complete collection of
casts in a building in the same place. Barthol-
omew's best work, the " Eve," is in the possession
376 AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
of Mr. Joseph Harrison, Jr., of Philadelphia. In
conclusion, we must mention the fact that a num-
ber of American women have made praiseworthy
efforts to accomplish something in sculpture, and
if it would be mere flattery to admit that any one
of them has done work worthy of lasting admira-
tion, it is no less creditable to them to have tried,
and they may at least be judged the peers of many
men calling themselves sculptors, and called so by
an easy world.
INDEX OF SCULPTORS AND
SCULPTURES.
PACK
Abydos (Sepulchres of) . . . '
. . . . 36
Achilles (Statue of) .
• 98, 99, 100, lor, 116
Acropolis of Athens ....
153, 158, 161, 180
Adam (Lambert Sigisbert)
. 322
(Nicolas Sebastien) .
. 322
Addison (Tomb of ) .
. 277
Adonis (Statue of) .
. 261
Adrian of Vries
. 294
^gina (Marbles of) . . . .8
!, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 89
Agamemnon (Statue of) .
122
Agasias
100
Ageladas. .....
78, 79, 80, 91
Agesander
. 141
Agnolo of Siena ....
. 202
Agostino of Siena ....
• . 202
Agrates or Agratus . . . . .
. 208
Agrippa (Statue of) .
. 192
Agrippina (Statue of) . . .
. 183, 184
Albano ......
. 227
Alberto Pio (Tomb of) .
. 306
Alcamenes .....
98, 120, 144, 167
Alcibiades (Statue of) ... .
120
Alexander (Statue of) . . .
. 119, 197
Alexander and Diogenes (Bas-relief) .
• 315
Alfieri (Tomb of) .
• 136
Algardi ......
, 227, 315
Alhambra (Lions of the) . . . .
. 238
378
INDEX.
Ailegrain (Chr'^tien).
" Altar of the Twelve Gods"
" Amazon attacked by a lioness
Amazons
Amenopliis (Image of)
Amenti (Assessors of)
Ammanato
Ammon Ra (Figure of)
Amphicrates .
Amset (Head of)
Amten (Tomb of)
Andrea of Pisa
Andre (Monument to)
Aneka (Figure of)
Anguier (Francois)
(Michel) .
Anochus (Statue of)
Anthermus
Antinoiis (Statue of)
Apelles .
Aphrodite (Statue ol
Apollino (The)
ApoUodorus
Apollo and the Swan
Belvedere . . 95
(The bronze)
Citharoedus
descending to Thetis
(The Didymoean)
Epicurius
(The Lycian)
Parnopos
(The Pythian)
of Rhodes
Sauroctonos
(Statues of)
ApoUonius
" Arc de I'Etoile " (The)
Argenti .
I'iO
I3I'
9+
77,
184,
138,
107,
107,
PAGR
• 325
. 123
258, 260
■ 137
. 26
36, 40
. 226
• 30
90
• 36
9, 40
. 202
• 274
• 30
307,
308, 309
307,
308,
339, 310
• 79
• 75
is-,,
191,
192, 196
. 122
104, 122
nr,
132, 133
• 130
■ 145
139,
140,
1^.1, 230
140
•
. m8
•
• 317
• 79
• 151
107, icS
. 168
1 88,
189,
140, 235
112
. 107
211,
262,
294. 323
. 157
.
• 332
237
54, 55. 56
INDEX.
" Ariadne on the Panther"
(Statue of)
Aristaeus
(Statue of)
Aristides (Statue of)
Aristocles
Aristomedon .
Assyria (Bas-reliefs of) . . -53
Athene (Statue of)
Athenodorus .
Athens (Terra-cottas of) .
" Atlas sustaining a celestial globe
Atum (Figure of) .
Aubert (Bust of ) .
Augustus (Statue of)
Auxesia (Figure of ) .
" Aux grands hommes la palrie reconnaissante " (Bas
"Awaking" (The) .
Bacchante (A)
Bacchus (The Drunken)
(The Indian, or Bearded)
(Statue of)
Baerz (Jacques dc) .
Balbiani (Valentine, Tomb of)
Balbus (Statues of) .
Bartholomew (Saint, Statue of)
Bartolini.
Barye (Antoine Louis)
Basilicata (Vases of the) .
Bas-reliefs by Anselm
" Battle of Assur-Akh-Bai " (Bas-relief)
<' of the Centaurs and Lapilhce".
" of the Greeks and Amazons " .
Becerra (Jasper) ....
Begas ......
Bernini (Lorenzo) . . . loo, 129, 226,
Berruguete (Alonzo)
.379
PACK
254, 25s, 256
• 333
. 148
. 79
. 78
57, 59, 270
• 77
142
• 43
. 148
• 30
• 327
184, 187
. 86
relief)
233, 234
. 299
• 332
212, 223
no
£0, 156, 205
. 267
• 303
. 186
. 208
• 237
330, 331
. 66
. 202
• 56
• 151
240, 242, 245
256, 261
227, 228, 261, 286
240, 241, 242, 245
380
INDEX.
PAGE
Berulle (Tomb of) .....,, . 307
Birague (Rene, Tomb of) .
. 303
"Birth of Pallas " (Parthenon)
167, 168, 169
"Birth of Venus" .
122
Blucher (Statue of) ,
• 257
Boar (The, of Florence)
. 124
Bogaert (Martin Van)
. 321
Bonnassieux (Jean Marie) .
• 331
Bosio (Joseph) .
• 329
Bouchardon
321, 322, 323
Boucher .
• 323
Bossuet (Bust of)
. 316
Boutellier (Jean)
. 2S9
"Boxers" (The)
. 229
Briaxis .
. 152
Brunelleschi
202, 214
Brutus (Statue of)
211, 221
" Bull " (The Bronze of Perillus)
• 75
Bulow (Statue of ) .
• 257
Buonarotti (Michael Angelo) 97, 133, 139, 141, 142, 145, 179, 184,
202, 210, 211, 214, 215,^ 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222,
223, 224, 226, 236, 237, 239, 240, 261, 276, 2S6, 292, 293,
295> 306, 311- 312, 315.
Bupalus 75
Butler (Tomb of ) .
• 277
" Byblis changed into a fountain "
• 330
C^SAR (Bust of ) .
. . . 183
(Statue of)
. 184, 186
Calamis .
140
Caffieri (Jacques)
. 321
Caligula (Bu„t of)
. 182
(Statue of)
. 189
Callicrates
158, 168, 271
Callo .
81, 87
Calvary of Spires
• 250
of St. Roch
. 308
Camden (Tomb of)
• 275
Caiiachus
1
. 79
INDEX.
381
Canino (Vases of ) . .
Cano (Alonzo).
"Canopi" ....
Canova (Antonio) 97, 148, 220, 228, 229, 230, 2,
236, 237, 255, 261, 280, 282, 323.
" Capitoline Tablets" (The)
Captives (The, by M. Angelo)
Caracalla (Bust of) .
Carpeaux
Cairrel (Armand, Statue of)
Caryatid (A) .
Caryatides (by Puget)
Casaubon (Tomb of)
Castor and Polhix (Statues of)
Cavelier (Pierre Jules)
Cecrops (Torso of) .
Cellini (Benvenuto) .
Centaur (A)
Cephisodotus .
Cervetri (Vases of ) .
Care (Antiquities of)
Chabot (Statue of) .
Chambres (Helen de, Tomb of)
Chantry .
Charles V. (Triumphs of, Bas-relief)
the Bold (Tomb of)
IX. (Bust of) .
Chares ...
Charon (Statue of) .
Chastity (Statue of) .
Chatham (Tomb of).
Chaucer (Tomb of) .
Chaudet (Antoine Denis)
Chephrem (Statue of)
" Chevaux de Marly or Ecuyers
Child's Bust by Pilon
"Chimjera" (They .
Chimney-piece by Glosencamp
Chons (Figure of ) .
PAGE
43. 66
245, 247, 248
• 35. 3^ 37
;r, 232, 233, 234,
33
!i8, 221, 293, 295
193
334
334
156
315
277
184
331
176
225, 229, 292
• 117
• 133
43. 65
43- 65
306
291
280
241
244. 265
305
112
322
114
275
277
329
80
3'8
268
38, 52, 63, 149
268
30
382
INDEX.
'* Christ and the Twelve Apostles"
" beneath the Shroud "
Christ by Bouchardon
by Fa Presto .
by M. Angelo .
on the Cross
Chiysothemus .
"Circumcision" (The)
Citium (Antiquities of)
Claux de Vousonne .
Clement XIII. (Tomb of)
■ XIV. (Tomb of)
Cleomenes
Cleosthenes (Statue of)
Cleves (Corneille Van)
Colbert (Bust of)
(Tomb of)
Colleoni (Statue of)
Colomb (Michault)
Colomban (Andre)
Colossi of Khorsabad
Commines (Tomb of)
" Conclamatio " (Bas-relief)
Conde (Statue of)
(Tomb of)
Congreve (Tomb of)
" Consolatrice " (La)
Constance j
Constantine WCompound Statue of)
Constant '
Corinna (Bust of ) .
Corneille (Statue of)
Corneilles (Busts of the) .
Cornelius
Cornewall (Captain, Tomb of)
Corradini (Antonio) .
Cortot (J.) •
Courtenvaux (Tomb of)
Cosmo (Saint, Statue of).
PAGE
197, 262
227, 2S0
• 323
. 227
. 216
. 308
. 78
. 291
60, 61
. 267
• 239
. 229
130. 133
. 79
. 322
. 308
. 316
206, 207
290, 292, 296, 306
. 290
47. 50, 52
291
194
334
307
276
230
198
329
324
321
253
273
228
330
308
214
INDEX.
Coudray (Frau9ois)
Cousin (Jean) .
Coustou (Nicolas)
(Guillaume)
"Cow of Myron"
Coysevox (Antoine)
Crauk
Croix (Hennequin de la)
Cuneiform Inscriptions
"Cupid and Psyche"
clipping his wings
(A sleeping)
seizing a Butterfly
tormenting a soul
(A Victorious) .
Cupids .
Cypselus (Carved Chest of
Cyprus (Terra-cottas of)
Dameas
Damia (Figure of) .
Damian (Saint, Statue of)
" Damoxenus and Creugas
Dannecker
Dantan (Antoine Laurent)
"Daoizand Velarde"
♦' Daphnis and Chloe "
David (by Francheville)
(by M. Angelo)
(by Donatello) .
(Louis)
Pierre Jean
Davy (Tomb of)
"Day" (by M. Angelo)
Decker (Hans)
"Dardali"
Diedalus
" Daedalus and Icarus "
De la Croix (Hennequin)
72,
74,
383
PAGE
301, 302, 306
318, 3i9> 321
318, 319
. 80
6, 317, 321
. 3-^4
. 290
. 60
. 326
• 331
. 213
. 329
• 331
. 324
no
• 77
. 43
. 77
. 86
. 214
. 229
. 254
• 333
. 247
• 330
. 309
. 213
. 203
. 329
• 333
. 275
. 214
. 250
• 74
Si, 87, 201
. 229
. 290
384
INDEX.
Delos (Terra-cottas of)
Delia Robbia (Luca).
Demigiano
Demosthenes (Statue of)
Denis (St., Gate of)
"Departure" (The, Bas-relief)
" Deposition from the Cross "
Desboeufs (Antoine) .
" Descent from the Cross "
Desjardins
De Thou (Tomb of)
" Diana at the Bath
of Ephesus
Huntress
of Gabii .
with the Stag
Statue of
Dip^nus .
"Discobolus" (The;
" Dispute of Poseidon and Pallas
Djizeh (Sculptures of)
Dogs (Bronze) .
Domitian (Statue of)
Domitius Corbulo (Statue of)
Donatello
Dontas .
Doryclidas
" DoryphorEe " (The)
Drake (Fred) .
Drogues (Jehan de) .
Dryden (Tomb of) .
Dubois (Paul) ,
Dumont (Alexander)
(Edme) .
Dupaty (Charles)
Dupre
Duret (Fran9ois Pierre)
Diirer (Albert)
• (Statue of)
94> 95
97>
202, 21
•
43
202,
204, 205
.
. 291
.
119
.
308
.
332
.
297
.
331
.
251
.
321, 322
.
308, 309
.
• 325
90, 97
01, 109,
137, 140
.
. 109
94, 95
127,
296, 326
77, 78
,
. 118
•
168, 174
.
5, 10
•
. 296
.
192
.
. 192
03, 204,
214, 224
•
. 78
•
. 78
•
. 98
255,
258, 261
.
. 268
.
. 277
.
• 334
.
• 331
•
. 322
.
330, 332
.
• 237
•
• 331
.
251, 252
.
257
ias-r
INDEX.
*' Early Dawn " (by M. Angclo)
Eg>'pt (Black Lions of)
(Pyramids of) .
"Elfin Dance" (The)
Elizabeth (Tomb of)
Endoeus .
Ensahor (Statue of) .
" Entrance of Alexander into Babylon
Epeus
Epicurius (Statue of)
Erectheum (Portico of the)
" Erection of a Colossal Bull " (B;
Evwin of Steinbach .
Euchir . . • •
EuteVidas
Evangelists (Statues of the)
" Evening" (By M. Angelo)
Falcon NET (Etienne)
Falquiere
Fa Presto (Luca)
Faun's Head (by M. Angelo)
" Faun with the Child " .
(The Dancing) .
(The Drunken) .
(The Musical) .
Fauns (Two dancing)
Faustina (Statue of) .
Fenelon (Bust of)
Ferdinand of Arragon (Tomb of)
Fiers . . • •
"Fish in a net"
Flaxman
"Flayed Man" (The)
Flora (The Farnese) .
Florence (Baptistery of) .
" Fontaine dcs Innocents "
. de Moliere
t. dc la Rue de Crenelle
relief)
385
PACK
. 214
. 184
9
. 203
. 273
. 90
. 28
. 262
. 122
. 121
• 154
. 56
. 249
. 78
. 78
206, 297
. 214
. 321
» 334
. 227
210, 211
. 114
43, 144, 294
144
32, 133. 140
. 114
• 193
. 316
243. 244
. 269
. 280
. 280
. 326
146
. 203
299, 3CHD
. 332
. 323
i:-, 145
38G
INDEX.
*' Force "
Foyatier
Fra Barduccio Cherichini (Statue
"France" (Bas-relief)
Francheville (Pierre).
Fran9ois de Bretagne (Tomb of)
Fremier (Emmanuel)
Frederick the Great (Monument
William III. (Statue of)
" Friendship" (Statue of).
" Ganymede and the Eagle "
Garrick (Tomb of) .
Gatteaux (Nicolas Marie) .
Gay (Tomb of)
Geefs ....
Genevieve (Saint, Tomb of)
" Genius of Eternal Repose "
" Genius of Liberty "
Georga (Saint, Statue of.)
Geta (Statue of)
Ghiberti (Lorenzo) .
Giam-Bologna
Gines (Juan)
Girardon (Fran9ois) .
Giovanni of Pisa
Gladiator (The Dying)
(The Fighting) .
Glaucias .
Glaucus .
Glosencamp (Hermann)
Glycon .
Gnidus (Venus of) .
Goethe and Schiller (Statues of)
Gois (Adrian) .
Goldsmith (Tomb of)
Goujon (Jean) .
"Graces" (The Three)
Gray (Tomb of)
of)
267
296,
PAGE
30S, 331
333
204
332
309
29c
331
257
258
293
148
278
,331
• 277
. 269
305
• "3
• 331
• 306
• 193
2
02,
203, 267
2
93.
294. 309
• 247
I
05.
112, 317
. 202
. 136
98,
lOO, I
01,
117, 140
. 81
• 75
268, 269
• 145
105, 324
259, 260
• 329
• 277
297, 299, 3
00,
301. 307
79, I
20,
252, 262
t
. 276
Gruyere (Charles)
" Guardian Angel leading a Repentant Sinner to God
Guillain (Simon) 307
Guillaime
Gunnery . . • •
Gutenberg (Statue of)
Guyot de Beaugrant
Hadrian (Statue of)
Handel (Tomb of) .
Hapi (Head of)
Harcourt (Tomb of).
" Hannodius and Aristogiton "
Harpocrates (Statue of) .
Harpy Tomb (The) .
Hathor (Figure of ) .
Hector (Obsequies of, Bas-relief)
Hecuba (Statue of ) .
Hegias or Hegesias .
Henri H. (Bust of ) .
in. (Bust of) .
IV. (Bust of) .
IV. (Statue of).
Henry VII. (Tomb of)
Heracles (Statue of ).
" Heracles crowned by Glory "
(The Farnese) .
(Head of)
in Repose
on the Pile
vanquished by Love
(Various statues of) .
Hermabicippus (A) .
Hermaphrodite (The Borghese)
"Hermes"
Hippomachi of Lysippus .
" Homer in rhapsody "
Horus (Statue of ) .
Houdon (Jean Antoine) .
184
279
36
325
90
137
149
29. 30
122
137
90
297, 305
305
309
309
2 So
77
3-0
3, I45> 146
306, 307
312
320
322
84, no, 213, 321
120
114
9, 120
III
329
28, 30
325, 326, 327, 328, 332
387
PAGB
332
, 309
Jj4
334
262
269
388 ISDEX.
Huez (Jean Baptiste)
Husson (Jean) .
Hyacinthus (Statue of ) .
Hygeia (Statue of ) .
Hyperion (Head of).
ICTINUS ....
"Idolino" (The) .
Ilyssus (Figure of, Parthenon)
" Improvisatore at the Vintage '
Innocence (Statue of)
Iris (Statue of)
Isis (Figure of)
Ivory Group by Diirer
Jacquot (Georges) .
" j3-g"^r devouring a Hare "
Jaley (Leon Louis Nicolas)
Jerome (Saint, Statue of) .
" Jason bringing home the Golden Fleece '
carrying away the Golden Fleece
(Statue of) ....
Jean de Boulogne [See Giam Bologna)
"Jesus bearing His Cross"
Joan of Arc (Statue of)
John the Baptist (Statue of)
John the Fearless (Tomb of)
Johnson (Tomb of ) .
" Juana la Loca " (Tomb of)
Juan de la Huerta
Judith (Statue of)
Julia (Statue of)
Julius II. (Statue of)
(Tomb of)
" Junction of the Seine and Marne "
Juno of Argos (Statue of)
of the Capitol (Statue of) .
of Samos
(Statue of) . . .
33
PAGE
322
332
329
148
172
158, 168, 271
62
175. 176
331
I. 332
173
30
252
332
332
239
261
256
"7
321
332
203, 204
244, 266, 268
. 277
242, 266
. 268
. 203
. 1S9
[3, 2:7, 218
216, 217
. 3'8
. 97
• 137
160, 220
• 294
INDEX.
389
Jupiter Olympius (Statue of)
Paiihellenios (Statue of)
Serapis (Statue of) .
Juste (Jean)
Justice (Statue of ) .
Kaeschmann (Joseph)
Kalah Shergat (Obelisk of)
(Statue found at)
Karamles (Relics from)
Kamak (Hypostile room at)
(Temple of ) .
Kebsnif (Head of) ,
Kertch (Palace and Tomb of)
Khorsabad (Colossi of)
(Palace of)
Kneller (Tomb of) .
" Knife Grinder " (The)
Koyunjik (Palace of)
Krafft (Adam) .
Krater (The Silver, of Delphi)
77. 97. I". 158, 159.
La Fayette (Statue of)
" Laocoon " (The) .
"LaLotta" .
Laphaes .
" Latona and her Childrei
Lebrija (High Altar of)
Lebrun (Bust of)
' ' Leda and the Swan "
Legendre (Roberte, Tomb
Lemaire (Philippe Henri)
Lemonturier (Antoine)
Leonardo (Alessandro)
Leochares
" Life of the Virgin " (Bas
Livia (Statue of ) .
Ligouier (Lord, Tomb of)
" Lion devouring a Boar "
loi, 12:
" (Parthenon)
of) .
relief)
140,
141,
47
47, I
PACK
160, 220
82,83
148
291
308
256
59
59
50
■ 29
5. ". 27
36. 37
• 43
, 50, 52
47, 48
• 275
35, 136
• 50
. 250
• 75
• 334
81, 235, 313
133
78
176
246
317
321
29
332
268
206
152
290
189
274
33c'
390
INDEX.
" Lo Zuccone" . - .
Longneville (Henri, Monument to)
Lorenzo de Medici (Mausoleum of)
Louisa of Russia (Tomb of)
(Statue of)
Louis XIL (Tomb of)
(Statue of)
Xin. (Statue of)
XIV. (Statue of)
XV. (Statue of)
Luccardi
Lucius Verus (Bust of)
Luther (Statue of) .
Lydian Tomb (The) .
Lysippus .
PAGE
. 204
. 308
. 214
. 256
. 256
. 291
. 291
• 307
242, 307, 316, 319
• 319
.237
. 192
• 257
. . 64
no, III, 119, t20, 151, 259
Macaulay (Tomb of ) .
Madeleine de Savoie Tende (Tomb of)
" Madonna adoring her dead Son "
of Bruges
della Pieta
• holding the Infant Jesus
• of Naples
" Magdalene " (Repentant)
Magny (Tomb of)
Manetho (Tables of)
Mansfield (Tomb of)
*'Mano de la teta" .
Marcus Aurelius (Equestrian Statue of)
■ (Statue of)
Maria Christina (Tomb of)
Leczinska (Statue of)
Marius (Trophies of)
Mark (Saint, Statue of ) .
Marochetti (Baron) .
Marriage of the Virgin (Bas-relief)
Mars (Statue of ) .
Marsyas (Statue of ) .
(The Bound) .
• 277
• 309
. 260
222, 224
. 215
205, 240
. 262
36, 255, 280
• 306
9
. 274
. 240
. 184
186, 188, 189
231, 232, 282
• 319
. 184
• 203
. 282
. 291
136, 261
. 117
. 118
INDEX.
391
Mary of Burgundy (Tomb of)
Stuart (Tomb of)
(The Virgin, Statue of)
wife of William III. (Tomli of)
Mason (Tomb of ) .
Matildia (Bust of) .
" Massacre of the Innocents "
Maurice of Saxony (Bust of)
Mausolus (Mausoleum of)
Maximilian (Statue of)
Mazarin (Tomb of ) .
Medici (Tombs of the)
Medon ....
Melas ....
Meleager (Statue of)
Memnon (Statue of)
Memphis (Sepulchres of) .
Menephtah (Statue of)
Mentichetes (Sepulchral Room of)
" Mercury attaching the wings to his heels '
carrying off Hebe
(The Flying) .
and Psyche
of Rome .
(The Seated) .
(Statue of)
" Metrodorus and Epicurius " (Statues
Meyt (Conrad)
Micciades . . . ,
Michael Angelo {See Buonarotti)
Mignard (Bust of ) .
Millet (Anne) ....
Milo (Statue of ) .
of Crotona (Statue of)
Miltiades (Statue of)
Milton (Tomb of ) .
" Minei-va after the Judgment of Paris
of Athens
Hellotis .
of)
I lO,
PAGE
244,
265, 266
•
. 273
.
• 3^3
.
. 273
•
. 277
.
• 193
•
247, 291
•
• 325
•
. 152
•
. 257
•
. 316
•
214, 280
.
. 78
•
• 75
.
• 145
.
. 26
.
. 36
.
. 27
.
. 40
•
. 321
.
. 295
.
• 295
•
. 295
•
140
.
• 144
42, 262,
294, 332
•
. 121
•
. 290
•
• 75
•
• 317
•
332, 334
.
. 77
313.
314, 324
•
. 120
•
277. 278
.
• o-,^
90, 97,
160, 220
,
. 107
392
INDEX.
PACK
Minerva (The Lemnian) . , . . . . -155
Polias
97, 155, 157
Promachos
. 15S
(The Warrior) .
• 155, 158, 159
with the Necl<]ace
. 107
(Various Statues of) .
. 8z
U 85, 97, 137, 176
Modesty (Statue of)
. 227, 332
Moitte ....
• 332
Moliere (Bust of ) .
. 328
Monlanes (Jean Martinez)
. 245
Montelupo (Raffaello da) .
. 214
Montmorency (Tomb of) .
. 309
Montorsoli
. 214
" Monument of the Pont au Cha
nge "
. 307
Monuments of Xanthus
150, 151
Moses (Statue of)
212,
2i8, :
219, 220, 223, 239
Mouth (Figure of ) .
• 30
Munt (Figure of ) .
. 30
Muses (The Nine) .
III, 121, 262
Mutius Scaevola (Statue of)
• 332
Myron ....
78, So
Naiad (A) .
• 332
Naucydes
. u8
Neith (Figure of)
30, 137
Nemesis (Statue of ) .
. Ill
" Neptune calming the Waves "
• • 's22
(The Colossal, by Ammanato) .
. 226
• (Torso of)
. . 176
"Nereides" ....
122, 298
Nero (Statue of ) .
. 190, 192
Nesa (Statue of) .
9, 27
Nesrok (Statue of ) .
. . 58
Newton (Tomb of) .
• 275, 276
Nicolas of Pisa
179, 202, 250
Nightingale (Tomb of) .
. 281
" Night " (By M. Angelo)
. 214
Nike Apteros (Fragments of, Parthenon)
. . 176
(Temple of ) .
•
• 155
INDEX.
' (Th
Nile (Statue of the) .
Niobe and her Children
(A Son of)
Nisus and Euryalus (Statues of;
Nola (Vases of)
" Nuestra Seilora de la Solidad
Num (Figure of)
Nuremberg (Fountain of)
Nupte (Figure of) .
" Nymph of Fontainebleau
" Nymphs of the Seine "
Cannes (Temple of)
Olivieri (Pietro Paolo)
Onatas .
Orpheus (Statue of) .
" Orator " (The)
Orcagna (Andrea) .
"Order"' (Statue of )
Osiris (Figure of)
(Statuette of) .
Otho (Bust of)
Overbeck
Pasht (Figure of) .
Pajou (Augustin)
Palissy (Bernard)
Palladio .
Pallas of Velletri
Pantheon (Pediment of the)
Paoli (Pasquale, Tomb of)
Papias
Parcx (Statues of the)
Parthenon (Cella of the)
(Frieze of the) .... 162,
(Metopes of the) . • 162,165,
(Pediments of the) 162, 167, 168, 169, 170,
. (Various Sculptures of the) 151, 153, 154.
172, 178, 179. 270.
303
PAGE
125, 126, 127, 128
• 332
• 330
43. "66
. 242
• 30
. 250
• 30
225, 226, 292
298, 299
. 49
• 293
81,87
• 309
. 63
. 202
• 331
• 30
• 30
. 182
• 253
• 30
• 324
. 204
. 180
. 106
• 333
. 274
. 117
173. 174. 175
162, 163 170, 178
163, 164, 167, 170
166, 167, 170, 178
171, 174, 176, 178
157, 159. 161, 170,
394
INDEX,
Pascal (Statue of) .
Passion (Bas-reliefs of the),
Paul III. (Tomb of)
" Peace" (Statue of)
Pedro de Machua
Pensevau (Statue of)
" Pensieroso" (The)
Perillus .
Perrand .
" Persephone and Demeter" (Statues of)
Perseus (Statue of) .
and Andromeda
■ cutting off the Medusa's Head
delivering Andromeda
Peter the Great (Statue of)
Petitot (Messidor Lebon) .
Pheidias 78, 80, 87, 89, 90, 93, 97, 98,
152, ISS. 157, 158, 159. 162, 167,
285, 297, 315, 317.
Philibert le Beau (Tomb of)
Philippe de Chabot (Mausoleum of)
Philip the Handsome (Tomb of)
the Hardy (Tomb of)
Philopoemen (Statue of) .
Phiteus . . . •
Phre (Figure of)
Phtah (Figure of ) .
Pierre de Breze (Tomb of)
Pierre Jacques .
Pigalle (Jean Baptiste)
Pilon (Germain)
Pisa (Pulpits of)
Pius VI. (Tomb of ) .
Plautilla (Bust of) .
" Pluto can-ying away Proserpine "
Plutus (Statue of)
Pomona (Statue of) .
Polycles .
Polycletus
PAOE
. 331
. 250
. 280
. 330
. 241
. 28
. 214
• 75
. 334
. 172
229, 230
. 312
. 225
• 3'3
. 321
• 332
III, 114, 124, 130, 151,
168, 177, 179. 180, 271,
.
290
. 302
243> 244
244,
266, 267
. 334
. 152
• 30
• 30
301, 302
. 306
. 321,
325. 326
301, 302, 303,
3o5> 321
.
. 202
•
229
193
•
317
• •
322
• •
332
.
114
. 78, 80, 98, 114
2 A
INDEX.
3!)5
Polydorus
Polyhymnia (St£.tue of)
" Polyphemus on the Rock "
Ponipey (Bust of)
Poniatowski (Statue of)
Pope (Tomb of)
Porta (Giacomo della)
Poucher (Tomb of) .
Pradier (James)
"Prayer"
Praxiteles 87, 90, 93, 105, 108, no, 126, 130, 133,
285, 324.
" Presiding Spirits of the Games "
" Prretorian Soldiers " (The, Bas-relief)
Prieur (Barthelemy) ....
" Progress of Civilization " (Bas-relief)
" Prometheus and the Vulture ".
Psammetichus-Mouneh (Statue of)
" Psyche and Cupid "
■ deserted by Cupid
(Statue of)
with the Lamp .
" Pteron " (The)
Ptolycus .
Puget 220, 286, 307, 310, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316,
323. 334-
Pupienus (Statue of)
Pythis
Ra (Figure of)
Ra-em-Ke (Statue of)
Rameses-Meiamun (Statue of)
Rameys (The two) .
Ra-Xefer (Statue of)
" Rape of a Sabine "
Rauch (Christian) 255, 2
Ravi (Jean)
Rene Birague (Tomb of)
" Repose in Egypt " (After A. Diirer)
PAGE
142
112
322
182
262
277
291
332
332
144, 152, 209,
122
• 194
• 309
. 270
. 322
. 28
. 324
• 331
324, 332
. 326
. 152
. 81
320, 321, 322,
190, 197
152, 153
. 30
. 7. 9
. 26
56,
• 41
. 294
!57, 260
. 289
• 303
. 2;i
30(J
INDEX.
Rhsecus •
Rhytons .
Riclielieu (Bust of)
Rietschel (Ernest)
" River god pouring water from
Roland (P. L.)
Roman (P. L.).
Rome (Vases found at)
Rosetta Stone (The)
Rotator (The) .
Rotrou (Bust of)
RoubiUac
Rousseau (Jacques)
(Bust of Jean-Jacques)
Rowe (Tomb of)
Rude (Francois)
Sabina of Steinbach
" Saint Andrew before his Cross
" Saint Sebastian at the Pillar
(Statue of)
Sakkara (Pyramid of)
Salmacis (Statue of).
Samoun (Sepulchres of)
Sansovino (Jacobo Tatti)
Sappho (Figure of)
Sarcophagi
Sarrazin (Jacques)
Saxe (Marshal, Tomb of)
Satyrus .
ScarabKus
Schadow.
Schafra (Statue of)
Scharnost (General, Statue of)
Schuffer (Sebald)
Schwanthaler .
Scopas .
Sculptors of Greece (Statues of)
Scyllis .
his urn "
202,
20
D'
FACE
. 74
. 66
. . . 316
. 25s, 260
• 321
. 329
• 330
. 66
• 38> 39> 40
• i35> 136
. 321
279
322
326
277
332
249
322
322
205
9, 40
• 114, 329
5. "
2o5, 220, 224, 226
. 142
• 34, 35. 38, 193
■ 307, 310
280, 326
. 152
. 32
. 255
8, 9, 41
• 257
. 250
• 255
126, 130, 152
, 260
77, 7S
INDEX.
397
Seb (Figure of)
Sebald (Saint, Baptisteiy of)
(Saint, Tomb of)
Seguier (Bust of ) .
Selinuntium (Temple of) .
Sepa (Statue of)
Septimus Severus (Bust of)
" Sermon of Saint Paul at Athens
Sesurtasen (Statuette of)
Seti I. (Tomb of)
II. (Statue of) .
Seth (Figure of)
Sethos (Statue of)
Sevekhotep (Statue of)
Shakespear (Tomb of)
Sheemakers
" Shepherd Phorbas carrying away th
Sheridan (Tomb of) .
" Siege of a Town " (Bas-relief)
Siena (Pulpits of)
Sigean Inscription (The)
" Silenus with the young B
Simart (Charles)
Simmias .
Siumutf (Head of)
" Sleeping Penelope " (The)
Sluter (Claux) .
Smilis of yEgina
Socrates (Statue of) .
Sola (Antonio)
Sopers
Sophroniscus .
Sphinx .
Spartacus (Statue of)
Spenser (Tomb of) ,
Spy (The)
Stanhope (Tomb of)
" Statuae Iconicse" .
" StelK "
young Oedipus '
5> 2
PAGB
30
250
250
43
9. 27
192
305
26
29
27
27, 30
27
26, 29
77, 278, 280
276, 278
• 329
277, 278
56
202
155
114
333
90
36, 37
331
267
81
120
247
269
159
45. 53
333
277
135, 136
• 274
\i8, 182, 187
5. 32, 34, 35
41,
398
INDEX.
PAr.8
Strasbourg (Cathedral of) .
.
. 244
Strazzi ....
.
. 237
" Strugt,'le between Saint Gee
rge and the
Dragon
J3
. 290
" Suovetaurilia " (Bas-relief)
.
• 194
Susannah (History of, Bas-reliefs)
• 269
Synnoos ....
• .
. 81
Tablets (Assyrian) .
S3.
54, 57, 59
Taho (Sarcophagus of)
.
• 35
Tapheru (Figure of)
•
• 29
Taur (Figure of)
•
30, 38
Tauriscus
.
• 147
Telecles ....
,
74
Terpsichore (Statue of)
•
• 255
Teti (Statue of)
,
. 28
Texier (Jean) .
.
. 291
Thalia (Statue of) .
•
. 121
Thebes (Sepulchres of)
•
", 36
Theocles ....
.
. 78
Theodorus
74,
75, 76, 78
" Theseus killing the Centaur
Eurytion "
.
• 234
conqueror of the Minotaur .
233
234, 235
Thevenin de Saint Leguier (Tomb of)
.
. 290
Thierry (Jean) ,
.
•
. 321
Thomas ....
• •
,
• 334
Thompson (Tomb of)
. •
•
• 277
Thorwaldsen (Albert Bartholomew) .
' 2,2,1
=37,
261
262, 263
Thoth (Figure of) .
.
• 30
" Tiber " (The)
•
• 113
Tiberius (Statue of ) .
•
. 188
TimosithnK (Statue of)
,
• 79
Timotheus
,
. 152
Tiridates.
,
. 191
" Titan struck by thunder "
,
. 322
Titus (Statue of)
.
. 190
Tomb by Puget
.
• 315
" Toro Farnese " (The)
146,
149
i8i, 314
Torregiano
224, 239,
240,
273, 280
Torso (The Belvedere)
•
•
143, 17';
INDEX.
" Transfiguration of our Saviour "
Trebatti (Paul Ponce)
Tremouille (Charlotte, Tomb of)
"Tritons"
"Triumphant Rome"
" Triumph of Maximilian II."
"Truth" (Statue of)
Turenne (Tomb of) .
Un-Nefru (Statue of)
"Union" (Statue of)
Urania (Statue of) .
Urban VIII. (Tomb of)
" Ulysses bending his Bow "
Van Bogaert (Martin)
Vase (The Grecian)
with three Graces
Vases (by Cellini)
• (Etruscan)
Vela
Venus of Amathus
Anadyomenes
at the Bath
Callipygos
of Capua .
(The Chaste)
(A Draped)
Euplcea .
Genetrix .
of Knidus
leaving the Bath
a Libertin
of Medici
■ of Melos .
of Praxiteles
of Troas .
Victrix .
Venuses (Two Marine)
93^
93.
94, 95
128,
97,
PACK
. 241
305, 306
. 308
. 298
. 186
• 251
308, 331
. 227
. 28
. 308
. 112
. 227
. 322
. 32t
. 61
303, 304
. 226
64, 65
. 237
. 97
122
• 325
. 144
. 144
. 148
. 105
. 105
. 105
80, 97, 105, 324
136, 138
• los
129, 130, 140, 145
loi, 104, 129, 140
. 130
. 105
92, 104, 105
. 105
400
INDEX.
Verrocchio (Andrea).
. 206
Vesta
• 332
" Vetri Antichi " . . . .
. 68
" Victories " (Six marble) .
. 257
Victory (A, by M. Angelo)
. 218
"Victory" (A Winged) .
• 7S> 173
Victorious Alexander (Statue of)
• 314
Vigarni (Filippo)
• 239
Vinache (Joseph)
• 322
Vine (Tlie Golden, of Sardis)
• 75
"Virgin adoring the Infant Saviour"
• 205
• (Bust of the) .
• 329
holding the Holy Child " .
. 246
nursing the Infant Jesus " .
. 214
Vischer (Peter)
. 250
Visitation (The, bas-relief)
. 291
Voltaire (Bust of ) .
. 328
• (Statue of ) . . .
. 325
Vulcan (Statue of ) .
• 294
"War"
. 330
Warren (Eliz. Tomb of ) .
. 280
Washington (Statue of ) . .
. 328
Watt (Statue of)
. 280
(Tomb of )
• 275
Wellington (Equestrian Statue of)
. 272
■ (Statue of ) . . .
. 272
Westmacott (Sir Richard) .
. 270, 271
Wiener ....
. 269
Wilberforce (Tomb of ) .
. 275
Wilkie (Statue of ) ,
. 271
William III. (Tomb of ) .
• 273
Wolf (The Etruscan)
. 186
Wolfe (General, Tomb of)
, 274
" Wrestlers " (The) .
lOI,
133. 134, 141, 229, 235
Wyatt (Tomb of ) .
. . . . 27f
Xanthus (Monument of ) .
. 150, 151
YoRCK (Statue of ) .
»
. 257
INDEX.
401
" Young Fisher dancing the Tarantella "
playing with a Tortoise " .
" Young Girl frightened by a Snake "
with the Stag
" Young Hunter playing with his Dog "
wounded by a Snake
' Young Neapolitan Dancer "
" Zephyrus carrying off the Sleeping Psyche "
Zeuxis .......
"Zodiac of Denderah" (The) .
PAG a
332
332
323
331
332
331
256
ii8
39. 40
INDEX TO AMERICAN SCULPTURE.
" Adams, John " (by Binon)
Akers (Paul)
Ball (Thomas)
Bartholomew (Edward Sheffield)
" Beethoven "
Binney Monument
Binon ....
" Bird, Shippen " .
Brown (Henry Kirke) .
Capellano (A.)
Causici (Enrico) .
Ceracchi (Giuseppe)
" Chanting Cherub " (The)
" Cleopatra "
Clevenger (Shobal Vail)
Crawford (Thomas)
Dexter (Henry)
Dixey (John)
• 370
• 375
• 354
362, 363
344, 353
• 360
357, 358, 359, 360, 361, 362, 372
345
375
• 343
• 343
• 340, 34 r
348, 349, 350
• 369
• 375
352, 353, 354, 355, 356
. 363, 363, 364
. 340
402
INDEX.
" Everett, Edward "
" Eve "
Frazee (John)
Gevelot (N.)
"Good Samaritan" (The)
" Greek Slave " .
"Greene" (General)
Greenough (Horatio)
Hart (Joel T.)
Houdon
" Indian Chief" .
" Indian Girl " ,
"Indian Hunter"
" Liberty " .
" Libyan Sibyl " ,
" Orpheus " .
Palmer (Erastus D.)
Powers (Hiram) .
" Proserpine "
"Rescue" (The)
Rogers (John)
Rogers (Randolph)
Rush (William) .
"^ Sappho " .
" Shakespeare " .
Story (William Wetmore)
Thompson (Launt)
"Trapper" (The)
PAGE
• 375
343. 344, 345
• 343
• 373
351. 352, 367
. . 361
345. 346, 347, 34S, 349. SS"^. 359
352
339
354
372
355
369
353
365, 366, 367
345. 350, 351, 352
352
348
374, 375
356
340
369
373
346, 367, 368, 369, 370
374
374
INDEX.
403
Ward (John Quincy Adams)
"Washington" (by Ball)
" Washington" (by Crawford)
" Washington " (by H. K. Brown)
"Washington" (by Ceracchi)
" Washington " (by Greenough) .
" Washington " (by Houdon)
" White Captive "...
Wright (Mrs. Patience)
PAGE
370, 371, 372, 373
• 370
• 354
• 357
• 342
346, 347> 348
• 339
. 366, 367
. 337, 338
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THE SECOND SERIES OF THE
Illustrated Library of Wonders.
WONDERS OF ELECTRICITY. Ed-
ited by Dr. J. W. Ar.mstro.ng, President
of the State Normal School, Iredonia,
N.Y. $1.50
WONDERS OF VEGETATION.
(Over 40 Illustrations.) Edited by Prof.
SCHELE De VekE. $1.50
WONDERS pF WATER. (64 Illus-
trations.) Edited by Prof Schele De
Veke. $1-50
WONDERS OF THE MOON. (With
50 Illusirations.; Edited, with additions,
by Miss Maria Mitchell, of Vassar
College, Poughkeepsie. $l-50
THE FIRST SERIES OF
W>\^ Iftus!ratp5 Hifeperg of Monbpps
Comprises Twenty Volumes, containing over 1,000 Beautiful Illustrations.
These Twentj' Volumes in cloth, or in half roan, gilt top, are furnished in a black walnut
case for $30.00 (the case gratis), or they may be bought singly or in libraries, classified
according to their subjects as below, each i vol. i2mo. Price per vol. §1.50.
WONDERS OF NATURE.
A'o. Illus.
THE HUMAN BODY ... 43
THE SUBLIME IN NATURE . 44
INTELLIGENCE OF ANIMALS 54
THUNDER AND LIGHTNING . 39
BOTTOM OF THE SEA . . 68
THE HEAVENS .... 48
6 Vols, in a neat box, .$9.
WONDERS OF ART.
ITALIAN ART
EUROPEAN ART .
ARCHITECTURE .
GLASS-MAKING .
WONDERS OF POMPEII
EGYPT 3,300 YEARS AGO .
6 Vols, in a niat bo,\, $g.
No. Illus.
. 28
II
60
63
22
40
WONDERS OF SCIENCE.
No. Illus.
THE SUN. By Guillemin . . 58
WONDERS OF HEAT . . 93
OPTICAL WONDERS ... 71
WONDERS OF ACOUSTICS . no
4 \'ols. m a neat bo.\, ^6.
ADVENTURES & EXPLOITS.
A'o. Illus.
WONDERFUL ESCAPES
BODILY STRENGTH & SKILL
BALLOON ASCENTS .
GREAT HUNTS ....
4 Vols, in a neat box, §6.
26
70
30
22
SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUMES TO THE FIRST SERIES.
MOUNTAIN
Illustrations.)
Headley.
ADVENTURES. (39
Edited by Hon. J. T.
WONDERS OF ENGRAVING. (34
lllustiaiiujis.y translated from the Krench
of Georges Duplessis.
Any or all the volumes of the Illlstrated Library of Wonders sent to any
address, post or express charges paid, on receipt of the price.
A Descriptive Catalogue 0/ the Wcnder Libk.\rv, nuitk specimen Illustrations,
ttnt te any address, on application.
15
CRITICAL NOTICES.
OF THE
Library of Travel
" It is evidently the aim of this ' Library of Travel, Exploration and Adventure ' to
:ome between the cumbersome Cyclopaedia and the prolix narrative, and avoiding the dry-
less of the one and the detail of the other, to summarize, in an attractive and entertaining
I'ay and in a series of volumes each of which shall be complete in iLself, the results of indi-
vidual exploration, and thus to present a panorama of the different countries of our globe.
I'he idea which is certainly a happy one, is sure of being carried out in a thorough and com-
letent manner by the veteran traveller and skilled writer, Mr. Bayard Taylor, to whom
he editorship of the series has very wisely been intrusted." — N'. } '. limes.
"Will hnd favor with the public."—^. F. Herald,
" Of solid and practical value." — .V. V. Observer.
"This useful and entertaining series is a valuable addition to our literature." — Phila-
'ephiii Age.
"An admirable library." — Boston Journal.
"To any one fond of re.iding books of Travel, this series, concise, reliable and recent,
riust prove almost indispensable." — Country Gentleman.
" A fine series of boolis." — Brookyn Eagle.
"A valuable series." — Boston Cominomvcalth.
" It is a little like, b-it much better than, the Library of Wonders, which so many boys
nd girls have read with delight." — Churchman ( tiartford.)
"We congratulate the publishers and the public upon the successful inauguration of
his new and valuable series of publications, and prophesy for them an eminent success." —
\'e'aj York Christian Advocate.
"The undertaking promises well, and under the management of so accomplished an
ditor as Bayard Taylor, there is no room to doubt that it will be an entire success." —
V'. y. Ckurcli Journal.
"We look for a Library as instructive as it will be entertaining, and sure to commnnd
very high degree of popular favor. The plan adopted is one which commends itself to
pproval." — Albany Evening Journal.
" We look >ipon such a library as an altogether good, educating induence, especially
mongst our young people." — Sunday School Times.
" Projj^iscs to be a very popular series." — ..V. V. Methodist.
"This series of books will be valuable in an educational point of view, as well as for
le entertainment afforded, making the collection desirable for village and other libraries of
opular reading." — I'ortand Argus.
" For readers of all ages, and for the School and Family Library, it will be found to
ave peculiar attractions." — Episcopal Kegiste-^.
"The idea is a capital one ; to cla.ssify all the information connected with travil by the
juntries, and not by the traveller." — Scottish, American.
JUST THE BOOKS FOR SUNDAY SCHOOL LIBRARIES.
"Suitable for circulation through the libraries of our Sabbath schools." — Congrcga-
'onalist.
" Put this series with Scribner's Scientific one, on your Sunday school shelves." — Zian's
ferald.
" This series will hold the same relation to geography and history that the popular Library
f iVonder^ does to the different branches of natural science ; and nothing more need be
lid to commend it to schools a-id Sunday si.hool l.braries." — Ladies' Repository,
ARABIA.
TRA VELS IN ARABIA. Compiled and arranged by Bayard Taylor.
I vol. l2mo., 18 full-page Illustrations and a Map, $1.50.
In this volume Mr. "Taylor condenses the accounts of Niebuhr, Burchardt,
Burton, and Palgravc, and by way of illustration, presents us with pictures
obtained with difficulty from various sources, Mr. R. S. GitTord furnishing some
character sketches from his own portfolio. Nowhere else can be found so com-
prehensive yet compendious description of this interesting count. y.
J^or Specimen Illustration see page 12.
CRITICAL NOTICES.
" It gives a very full and interesting account of a country about which comparatively little
has been written, but which contains much that is of absorbing interest. Bible students
are especially interested in a region so mtimately as.sociated with Bible times. A fine map
and many illustrations complete the value of the work which should be introduced into our
Sunday school libraries." — 5". S. Times.
" This third volume, ' Arabia,' is full of interesting information in regard to the char-
acter of a people and country, about which our knowledge is comparatively small." — IVatch-
tnan and Reflector.
SOUTH AFRICA.
TRA VELS IN SOUTH AFRICA. Compiled and arranged by Bayard
Taylor. 1 vol. 12 mo., with a Map and Illustrations, $1.50.
[JVill be ready in Scpumber.'^
Dr. Livingstone's repeated and persevering efforts to explore Southern Africa
have developed an extraordinary curiosity regarding this region Special promi-
nence is deservedly given in this volume to Dr. Livingstone's journeys, and at the
same time the travels of Moffat, the missionary, and of the Hungarian e.xplorer,
Magyar, are duly described. No where else can there be found a condensed and
connected account of Livingstone's journeys and of their relation to those of
other explorers in this region.
For Specimen Illustration see page 13.
' ^ — -^ I.M «• M :
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