Wonders of Sculpture  

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"IN a former work, the Wonders of Painting we made the preliminary remark, that of the three arts of desfgn, 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. Sculpture, 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 strength or skill had made them chiefs of tribes and kings of nations ; and temples had to be raised in 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."--Wonders of Sculpture (1869) by Louis Viardot

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Les Merveilles de la sculpture (1869) is a book by Louis Viardot, translated as Wonders of Sculpture.

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WONDERS OF SCULPTURE,



Fig. 45. — Statue of MoiCS. Tomb of Julius II. (Rome.)


WON DERS


OF


SOULPTUEE.


BY

LOUIS VIARDOT.


ILLUSTRATED WITH SIXTY-TWO ENGRAVINGS.


LONDON:

SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW, & SEARLE,

CROWN BUILDINGS, i88, FLEET STREET.

1872.



All Rights Reserved,

J.


/•


LONDON :

PBOTTED BT W. CLOWES AND SONS, 6TAHV0BD 8TBEET AND CHABINO CB0S8.


NOTE.


The present volume is a translation of "Les Mer-

VEILLES DE LA SCULPTURE," by M. VlARDOT, published

last year by Messrs. Hachette and Company.

The author is so well known as an art critic, that it is unnecessary 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, Bailey, 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 modem sculpture in continental galleries.

In accordance with the usage of modem scholars, the original Greek names of the divinities, as Zeus, Poseidon, Pallas, have been in most cases substituted for their


vi NOTE.

Latin S3monyms 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 English readers.

N. d'Anvers.


CONTENTS.


BOOK I. ANCIENT SCULPTURE.


CHAPTER I.

EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.

! PAGE

Statue of Ra-em-Ke, of Sepa, of Nesa — Meaning of Egyptian terms — The archaic style — The second artistic epoch — The renaissance of art in Egypt — Egyptian statues in ^e Louvre, in the British Museum — The Rosetta Stone ... 5

CHAPTER IL

ASSYRIAN SCULPTURE.

Influence of Assyrian art on the Greeks, Etruscans, and Hebrews — Palace of Khorsabad — Discoveries at Koyunjik, Karaml^s, Kalab-Shergat — Colossal Bulls in the Louvre — Ass)rrian bas-reliefs in the British Museum — Obelisk of Kalab-Shergat 42

CHAPTER IIL

ETRUSCAN SCULPTURE.

Statues in the Uffizi Gallery : the Idolino, the Chimaera, and the Orator — ^The Lydian Tomb — Etruscan Vases (so-called) — Rhytons^ Amphorae — Vetri Antichi .... 62


viii CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV.

GRECIAN SCULPTURE.


PAGE


Influence of mythology on Grecian art — Daedalus — Glaucus — Dipoenusand Scyllis— Dameas— Ageladas— iEginetan 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 Famese — in the British Museum : the Marbles of Xanthus, the Elgin Marbles, Sculptures from the Parthenon ... 70

CHAPTER V.

ROMAN SCULPTURE.

Influence of Greece on Roman art — Statues of Emperors and Empresses : of Caesar Agrippina, Augustus, &c. ; of Anti- nous, Balbus, and others — Busts of Agrippa, Nero, Domitian, Caracalla, &c — Bas-reliefs : Suovetaurilia, a Conckmatio, the Prajtorian Soldiers . . . . . . .181


CONTENTS. ix


BOOK II. MODERN SCULPTURE.


CHAPTER I.

ITALIAN SCULPTURE.


PAGE


Nicolas of Pisa — Ghiberti — ^Della 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 ..*•..... 20i

CHAPTER ir.

SPANISH SCULPTURE.

Vigami — Berruguete — Becerra — Tombs of Isabella of Arragon and Charles V. , of Juana la Loca and Philip the Handsome — Cano — Gin^ . . . . . . . . 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 the 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 — Cousin — 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


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


■•O^


1. Pre- Historic Remains .

2. Ditto ditto . . . . ,

3. Ra-em-Ke 4* Schafra . . ....

5. Colossal Bas-relief, Nineveh, in the Louvre

6. The Infant Apollo with a Duck

7. The Venus of Milo, in the Louvre

8. Achilles, in the Louvre

9. Pallas of Velletri, in the Louvre

10. Bacchus, in the Louvre

11. Mercury, in the Louvre

12. The Tiber, in the Louvre

13. The Nile, in the Vatican.

14. Faun with a Child, in the Louvre.

15. The Pretended Germanicus, in the Louvre

16. A Discobolus, in the Louvre

17. The Faun of Praxiteles — at Rome

18. Niobe — at Florence .

19. The Venus of Medici — at Florence

20. ApoUino — at Florence ,

21. The Musical Faun — at Florence

22. The Wrestlers — at Florence.

23. The Arrotino — at Florence .

24. The Djring Gladiator — ^at Rome

25. Venus leaving the Bath — at Rome

26. The Amazon of the Capitol — at Rome

27. The Apollo Belvedere — at Rome .

28. The Laocoon — at Rome . •

29. The Torso of the Belvedere — at Rome 3a The Dancing Faun — at Naples 31. The Famese Bull — at Naples


PACE

3 3 8 8

51

63 92

99 106 108 109 112

"3

"5 116

118 119

128

J31 132

134 135 136 139

139 140 141 142

H3 146


zu


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


PAGE 163

164 164 166


32. Gods. Frieze of the Parthenon .

33. Young Man. Frieze of the Parthenon .

34. Cavalier. Ditto ditto •

35. Cavaliers. Ditto ditto

36. Metope of the Parthenon

37. Heads of Horses — ^from the Parthenon. British Museum 171

38. Theseus, from the Parthenon

39. The Parcse, from the Parthenon .

40. Torso

41. Agrippina of Germ£uiicus — at Rome . . .

42. Antinous — at Rome • . • . • .

43. Equestrian statue of Bartolommeo CoUeoni .

44. Ivy-crowned Bacchus — at Florence

45. Statue of Moses — at Rome . . .

46. The Perseus of Canova — ^at Rome.

47. Mausoleum of Maria Christina — Vienna

48. Theseus vanquishing the Minotaur — Vienna .

49. Ariadne on the Panther — Frankfort

50. Bronze monument of Frederick the Great — Berlin

51. The Amazon — at Berlin ....

52. Goethe and Schiller .....

53. Entrance of Alexander into Babylon

54. Tomb of the Dukes of Burgundy — ^at Dijon .

55. The Flying Mercury .

56. Fountain of the Innocents — Paris

57. Tomb of Pierre de Breze

58. Riding-Master of Marly-^Paris

59. Ditto ditto .

60. Voltaire, by Houdon . . .

61. The Marseillaise, by J. Rude

62. Pediment of the Pantiieon, Paris, by David


172

175 177

183 185 207 212

Frontispiece. 230 232

234

254

257 258

259 262 266 294 298 301

318 319 327 333 334


THE


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 desfgn, 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. Sculpture, 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 strength or skill had made them chiefs of tribes and kings of nations ; and temples had to be raised in 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, archi- 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 to imitate living creatures, and to reproduce his own image. " After admiring the universe," says M. Charles Blanc, " man began to contemplate him- 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.

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 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-reliefs and statues.


( 5 )


CHAPTER I.

EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.

FAR 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 influence 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 sacerdptal 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. Frangois Lenormant justly remarks : " Now that we are well acquainted with its various phases, art in Egypt appears to have 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-K6, 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-K^ lived under the fifth dynasty, his iconic statue must have been executed about the year 4000 B.C. More than 5800 years have therefore passed over these fragile pieces of cedar


8 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.

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-Ki. 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-


EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 9

self. Schafra lived more than a century before Ra-em-K6.

At the Louvre we have two statues in calcareous stone, one of the High Priest of the White Bull, named Sepa, 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 (Sagira), 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 overwhelming ; ... 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 EO TFTIAN SCULP TUBE.

development, a civilization far advanced in science and art, and possessed of mechanical processes suitable to the construction of 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. The living 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 SCULPTURE. 11

and excavated the gates of the kings, the temple of Karnak, the sepulchres of Samoun and Thebes from granite rocks, and finally condemned airts 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 tha 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 of architecture. We think excellence would have been a more accurate term to employ than perfection.

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 unchangea;ble 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. 13

ing phase of Egyptian art, so as to be able to say, 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 give the meaning of the names of different parts of the clothing of Egyptian statues.

Pschenty a cap or crown worn by divinities or Pharaohs. It is double, composed of the schaa and the teshr.

Schaa, a conical cap, forming the upper part of \h^ pschent. It is white.

Teshr, a cylindrical cap with an inclined peak behind, and a spiral ornament in front, forming the lower part of the pschent. It is red.

Al/(a,t{ ?), 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 a/f 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 Pharaohs also wear the royal apron.


14 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.

Gonty a kind of sceptre, terminating in the head of the animal called Koukoupha,

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 teskr sur- mounted by two feathers ; or a human form with a ram's head. Amen, Hammon, or Ammon^ **the hidden." The supreme God, king of the gods. Zeus, Jupiter. Thebes.

A female form (woman), wearing the teshr.

Mouthy "the mother," wife of Amen, Hera, Juno.

« 

Thebes.

A young man with a single lock of hair upon his head, and the crescent of the moon. Chouns or ChonSy "force," son of Amen and of Mouth. Heracles, Hercules. Thebes.

A human form with a goat's head. Noum, "water," called by the Greeks Zeus CknoumiSy "creator of mankind." Poseidon, Neptune. Elephantine.

A female form wearing a circular crown of feathers. Aneka, wife of Noum, Hestia, Vesta. Elephantine.

A female form wearing the hety with a goat's


EGYPTIAN SCULP TUBE, 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. Paskt 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. Atum-Nefer, called " the guardian of the ;iostril of the Sun,'* supposed to be the son of Phtah and of PasKt, 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 with two wings, trampling the serpent Apoph under her feet. Neith, goddess of wisdom and the arts. Athena {Athenk), Minerva. Sais.

A simple female form with the head of a cow. A thor 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


16 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.

disk. Ra (Re), son of Athor^ personification of the rising sun. Helios. Heliopolis.

A human form wearing the pschent on the head. AtouMy the personification of the setting sun.

A kneeling human form with the solar disk upon her head. MaoUy "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. Chfonos, Saturn.

A female form with a pitcher of water upon her head. Nupte^ Nutpe or NeptCy '* abyss of Heaven," wife of Seb. Rhea, Cybele.

A human form with the head of an ibis, some- times wearing the lunar crescent. Thothy " 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 Emeph, ** leader of the heaven," son of Ruy another form of the god Thoth,

A mummy wearing the het. Ousri (Osiris), eldest son of Seb and Nupte^ then called Oun-Nefer (Onnophris), **the manifester of good or opener of truth." Dionysius, the Bacchus of the Greeks. Busiris.


EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE, 17

A mummy wearing the A If, Osiris, then called Pethempamentes, **he who is resident in Hades," The Pluto of the Greeks. Abydos.

A female form with a throne upon her head. Isisy " the seaty* the daughter of Seb and Nouptey sister and wife of Osiris. Demeter, Ceres. Abydos.

A female form wearing on her head the hiero- glyphics of the words mistress and palace. Nep-t-a (Nephtys), "the mistress of the palace/' another daughter of Seb and Noupte^ sister and concubine of Osiris. Persephone, Proserpine. Abydos.

A human form with a hawk's head, wearing the psctunt. 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. ^Sethy "the ass," son of Seb and Nouptey the spirit of evil. Typhon. Ombos.

A hippopotamus standing erect, with a croco- dile's tail and a woman's head. Taur or Ta-Her (Thoueris), wife of Seth. Ombos.

Seth (Typhon) and Taur represent the evil principle.)

C


18 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.

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. ApoUinopolis Parva.

A human form with a dog's head. Anoup (Anubis), surnamed " the embalmer 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-Entp-Hept, "coming in peace," son of T/wtk. Asclepios, iEsculapius. Philae (Philoe).

A pied bull with the solar disk on its head. Hepi (Apis), " the hidden number," the eternal son of Pktah. 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. Renpou (Rephan), god of the Semitic races.

A human form with the head of an oryx. Nubi (Nubia), or Nashi, " the rebel," god of the black people.

A female form wearing the het, and carrying the shield and spear. Anta (Anaitis), goddess of the Armenians and Syrians.

After this long list of gods, or rather of different


EG YP TIAN SCULP TUBE. 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 empirey 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.;


1


20 EG YF TIAN SCULP TUBE.

(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 inore 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 IL, 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 Moeris, Sesostris, Rameses III., and Amenophis, called the new empirey 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 SCULP TUBE, 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 under


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, efforts 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. 23

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 -/Egina, 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 modem 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 were 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


EGYPTIAN SGULPTURE. 25

tomb, which was laboured at by a whole nation 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 Egypt ; 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 pne 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 i8th 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 1 2th 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 Se,thos 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 Sepa and his wife Nesa^ con- temporary with the first dynasties of the great


28 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.

pyramids, and consequently belonging 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 sceptre in either 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 Horus, chief of soldiers, son of Psammetichus and Novreu-Sevek, and another. in black granite of Ensahory surnamed Psammetichus- Mounehy 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 masterpieces 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

m

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 urcBus (aspic or asp), to whom the god Tapheru^ 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 L, 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 Kamak, 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 uraeus upon her fore- head. The symbolic ornaments upon her robe are a long address to Pharaoh : " Good god^ lord of


30 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE,

diademSy loved of the godSy son of justice and of truth f 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 Ammon-Ray lord of the three zones of the universe (the Egyptian Jupiter), his wife, Mouth (Juno), his first-born, Chdns (Hercules) ; here are Num (Neptune), dLnAAnekaQI^std) ; P>?:/<2A (Vulcan), and PacKt (Diana) ; Mu7it (Mars) and Hathor (Venus) ; Thoth (Mercury), and Neith (Minerva) ; Seb (Saturn), and iV«//^ (Cybele) ; Ray Phrey Atuniy or the rising, midday, and setting sun ; the bene- ficent triad of Osiris, IsiSy and Horus ; the male- volent pair, Seth (Typhon) and Tatiry &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.)

t 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 SCULPTURE. 31

shoulder to shoulder. The symbols of the divinities are 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 Ammon^ the ichneu- mon of CkSnSy the lion of Pktah, the cow of Hathor, the ibis of Thoty the gazelle of Sethy the sow of Taury &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, Dharmas, 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 Egypt, 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 che sacrifice of the living as to the burial of the dead. A pyramid would be a sepulchral chapel.

♦ Plutarque diet que ce n*estoit pas le chat ou le boeuf (pour exemple) que les ^Egyptiens adoroient, mais qu'ils adoroient en ces b^tes-1^ quelque image des facultes divines : en celle-ci la patience, en celle-U la vivacite, ou I'impatience de se voir enfermez ; par ou ils representoient la Liberte, quHls aimoient et adoroient au del^ de toute autre faculty divine; et ainsi des aultres. — (Montaigne.)


32 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE.

tions of their limbs were types of a complex unity. They were called symbolic 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 uraeus 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 stelce, or tablets with historical and funereal inscriptions, have become the true annals of Egypt. The steles 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


EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 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 preserve 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 " Hat, great god, lord of heaven," whom they represent by the solar disc between two outspread wings. Like the Ferouher of the Assyrians, the cardinal points are indicated in this figure either by one of the mystical eyes of Horus 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 PethempamenteSy 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 Amenti (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 j/^^ 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 stelcB 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 Egyptian Mmeum in the ^^ Museums of

Paris y"* pp. 414-418.


EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 35

renaissance under the Suite kings, long funereal pictures and countless groups were engraved upon them. The sarcophagi superseded the steles in hieroglyphic art. ChampoUion commenced the study 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."

ChampoUion himself brought home the chief of the sarcophagi of the Louvre, the one which con- tains the body of a basilico-grammates called Tahoy priest of Imhotep (the Egyptian iEsculapius), 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 Saite 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


36 EO YPTIAN SCULPTURE.

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 cholchyteSy 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 ^q four assessors of Amentia who were charged to bring the dead before the forty-two judges of Amentia whicK were as numerous "».s the different kinds of sin, and presided over by ne goddess Rhtnei (Truth or Justice). These four genii of the dead are Amset, son of Osiris, with a man's head ; Hapi, son of Phtah^ with a baboon's head ; Siumutf (or Tuautmutf), with a jackal's head ; and Kebhsnuf (or Kebsnif), with a hawk's head. Each one of these sepulchral vases has an inscription, occasionally coloured, cut into its outer surface. Sometimes it is an address from one of the spirits or genii to the Osirien (the dweller in the' abode of Osiris), or it is the speech of some other divinity. On the vase Amset we find one from the goddess Isis \ on the vase Hapi the


EG YP TIAN SCULP TUBE. 37

goddess Nephthys speaks ; on that called Siutmutf the goddess Neith ; on that of Kebsnify the goddess Selk, The four canopi on the chimney-piece of the room which contains those belonging to the Louvre are admirable specimens of these monuments.

There, too, are to be found numerous relics of the religious, civil, and domestic life of ancient Egypt, which cannot fail to interest those who care to recall the life of an extinct people, and, as the geologist builds up the antediluvian world with fossils, to reconstruct a bygone civilization from the ruins it has left. The astonishing preservation of so many objects is easily explained. They are all from tombs which were, so to speak, built for eternity. In a country where it was believed that the dead would return to reassume and reanimate their bodies ; in a country where the chief occupa- tion of life was to prepare for death ; the very corpses, embalmed in their swaddling wrappings and bandages, must have an endless duration ; and to bear the dead company in their long and unknown wanderings, the objects they best loved when living were shut in with them. But these things belong rather to archaeology than to art, and we must linger over them no longer.*

It seems unnecessary to pass from the Louvre to

♦ See the chapter already quoted, pp. 420-429.


38 EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE,

the British Museum, to describe the statues, statu- ettes, tablets, sarcophagi, &c., that are London's share of the spoils of Egypt * I will only name one small figure of the goddess Taur, wife of Seth (Typhon, the evil principle). She is represented as a hippopotamus, standing on its hind legs, with pendent arms, a lion's head, a woman's breasts, and a crocodile's tail. This strange figure, which recalls the Chimmra of the Greeks, and certain demons of the middle ages, is a very ancient proof of the eternal truth that man can invent nothing beyond what his senses have realised ; and that in the creation of any thing or being, his only idea of progress is a monstrous combination of different parts of creation.

We cannot, however, leave the British Museum without saying a word of the celebrated monument known as the Rosetta stone. It was found during the French occupation of 1799, near the town from which it takes its name (the ancient Bolbitinum, called Rachid by the Arabs), in the ruins of a temple dedicated to the god Atum-Nefer by the Pharaoh Nechao. The inscriptions on this stone, written by order of the high priests, assembled at Memphis to invest Ptolemy V. (Ptolemy Epiphanes)

♦ See the chapter British Museum^ in the ^^ Museums of England^'* Pp. 82-88.


EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 39

with royal prerogatives in 193 B.C., cpmmemorate the services rendered to the country by this prince. But it is not this which makes the Rosetta stone so valuable and famous. By a fortunate coinci- dence these inscriptions are engraved in three lan- guages and three characters : i. hieroglyphics or hieratic writing ; 2. demotic or enchorial writing ; 3. Greek writing. The last was easily read and interpreted, and a comparison instituted between it and the hitherto unknown hieroglyphics, which repeated the same thing, so that the Rosetta stone became the first key to hieroglyphic writing. To Champollion the elder, the learned and regretted author of Egypt under the Pharaohs^ belongs the honour of this important discovery. But although Frenchmen were the interpreters of this precious historical monument, on which they carried out their first researches, the English have obtained it as a trophy of war. We think, however, that science, not arms, should have decided to whom it rightly belonged. We were supposed to be compensated for its loss by the too famous Zodiac of Denderahy which will never lead to anything but great and complete mystification. It was supposed to be of fabulous antiquity, to have come down from the most remote ages ; and it is in reality, perhaps, no older than the later Ptolemies or the


40 EG TP TIAN SCULPTURE.

first Caesars. It was to throw a vivid light upon the astronomical science concealed by the priests in the mysteries of their temples ; and behold we discover that it is but a simple astrological figure, a mere horoscope ! What a downfall ! Alas, how can this useless and ridiculous Zodiac console us for the loss of the Rosetta stone.

Berlin, too, has its Egyptian museum. It con- tains some colossal statues in black and green granite, some sarcophagi with mummies, and evfen a complete collection of sacred animals. But after the bas-reliefs o( Amten, and the gate of the pyra- mid of Sakkara, already mentioned, the most important object is a sepulchral chamber^ discovered in 1823, in the necropolis of Thebes, and removed entire. A long quadrangular tomb rises in the centre, covered with hieroglyphical paintings, around which are grouped — two statuettes in painted cedar wood — ^two boats exactly like those now in use on the Nile, containing figures repre- senting the mummy's escort — the four amphorae of the genii of Amenti — four earthenware dishes covered with sycamore branches — two priests' rods — an ox's head, and a wooden pillow. This sepulchre, belonging to a high priest called Mentichetes, who lived under the 12th dynasty, more than four thousand years ago, is one of the most complete


EGYPTIAN SCULPTURE. 41

and valuable of all the antiquities of Upper Egypt It relates at the same time to history, religion, and art.

But thanks to the untiring efforts and fortunate discoveries of M. Mariette, aided by the patronage and liberality of the viceroy, Egypt itself will soon possess the richest Egyptian museum.

The marvellous wooden statue of Ra-em-K^y who lived under the Sth dynasty ; that in calcareous stone of Ra-NefcTy priest of Phtah at Memphis, at the same time ; and, finally, the earliest of all, that of the Pharaoh Schafra IV. of the 4th dynasty, which was found at the bottom of a well in the temple near the great Sphinx, were all lent to the Universal Exhibition of 1867 by M. Mariette. These invaluable monuments of primitive Egyptian art belong now to the rising museum at Boulak, near Cairo.


( 42 )


CHAPTER II.

ASSYRIAN SCULPTURE.

WE now come to consider the no less valuable monuments of that other ancient civiliza- tion, this time Asiatic, which arose on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, and is said to have been founded by Assur and Nimroud, with the empires of Nineveh and Babylon, forty-five centuries before our own age (about 2680 B.C.). By the union of the two empires under the great Semiramis, this civilization spread even to the Indus, and rising like a phcenix from the pyre of Sardanapalus, it lived on through the second empire under Shalma- neser, Sennacherib, and Nebuchadnezzar, until the conquest of Nineveh by Cyaxeres, and of Babylon by Cyrus (600 and 538 B.C.).

Assyrian civilization rivalled that of Egypt in antiquity and duration, and it certainly influenced that of the Greeks and Etruscans, and consequently of all Europe, more than the Egyptian. The most


ASSYBIAN SCULP TUBE. 43

ancient relics of Grecian and Etruscan art bear palpable marks of imitation of the early Assyrian style. We find this in -the buildings of the islands of Cyprus, Rhodes, Crete, and Sicily; in the metopes of the temple of Selinuntium ; in the lions and the frieze of the Treasure of Atreus, at Mycenae ; in the bas-reliefs collected at Marathon ; in some of the figures of the Gfeek zodiac ; in the painted vases (called Etruscan) of Cervetri, Vulci, Canino, and Nola ; in the terra-cottas, the silver chalices, and the jewels brought from Cyprus, Ccere (the ancient Agylla), Melos, Delos, Athens, Corinth, and finally from Kertch in the Crimea, which could once boast of the palace and tomb of the great Mithridates ; we find it even in the ornaments of Grecian architecture at the zenith of its perfec- tion, in its triglyphs, palm-leaves, egg-mouldings, rosettes, and maeanders. In fact, we can no longer agree with the antiquaries of the last century, who attributed the works of art in every material, at Persepolis, to captive Greeks. We must, on the contrary, conclude that the productions of the ancient Hellenes were largely borrowed from the Assyrians, the predecessors of the Persians on the borders of the Euphrates and Tigris, if indeed the latter were not their real authors.

It is no less evident that the civilization of the


44 ASSYBIAN SCULPTURE.

Phoenicians, like that of all Asia Minor, at the epoch preceding that of the Greek colonies, was purely Assyrian. The Hebrews, too, were brought into close contact with Phoenicia and Assyria ; they had the same origin and institutions, and we may almost say the same language as the Assyrians ; they often fell into their idolatries ; they were con- stantly in subjection to them, and were in captivity at Babylon for many years after the division of Judah and Israel — in short, they borrowed their civilization entirely from their powerful neighbours and conquerors, the Assyrians.

The proof of this assertion, which would have appeared very bold and audacious a few years ago, is to be found in a thousand passages of Scripture, many of which, formerly unintelligible, may now be explained by the aid of objects exhibited in the museums of London and Paris. I will borrow a few instances from the clear and learned review of M. Adrien de Longp^rier : " What were these lions, these bulls, these winged cherubims, which the Phoenician sculptors sent by Hiram to King Solomon, placed in the temple of Jerusalem .? Mere copies of symbolic Assyrian figures.* Who

♦ The Law of Moses, like that of Abraham in former days, and subsequently that of Mahomet, was iconoclast. " Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or the likeness of anything that


ASSYRIAN SCULPTURE, 45

was the personage described by the prophet Daniel (who was educated at the court of Nebuchad- nezzar), when he said : ' His garment was as white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool/ The answer is seen in the tunic painted with white Assyrian figures with their hair in small ringlets. How could this same prophet Daniel add ten horns to the fourth typical animal which he saw in his dream ? and why. did Samuel's mother say in her song : Et exaltatum est cornu meum in Deo meo ? In the great winged bulls which are the representations of the Assyrian kings as the sphinx (man-lion) was of the Pharaohs of Egypt, we see that ten horns could be placed below the tiara, and that the horn was the sign of power and glory. Why does Daniel say again : ' His throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire V It is a vivid metaphor suggested by the chair on wheels which was the throne of the


is in Heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, orjn the water that is under the earth : thou shalt not bow down to them or serve them. If thou shalt make me an altar of stones, thou shalt not make it of hewn stone . . . thou shalt build an altar unto the Lord thy God with whole stones : thou shalt not lift up any iron tool upon them.** (Exodus xx. 4, 5 ; Deut. xxvii. 5.) The Jews must therefore necessarily have borrowed the sculptured ornaments of their temple from the art of their neighbours and masters, the Assyrians.


46 ASSYBIAN SCULPTURE.

Assyrian kings. What do the allusions in the book of Kings, and that of Isaiah to Nisroch, the god-bird, signify ? It is the Assyrian divinity with an eagle's head and a man's body, holding a fir cone in the right hand and a basket or pail in the left ? What is the symbol of the old Hebrew shekels called the budding rod of Aaron ? It is the stem of the poppy with three capsules which so many divinities, kings, and priests carry in the Assyrian bas-reliefs, &c. I must add that in Nineveh and Babylon Mr. Layard mentions as many as fifty- five names of persons and places taken from the Bible which also occur in the Assyrian annals recently deciphered ; and since the publication of this beautiful book, which followed Nineveh and its Remains^ others have been discovered proving how great was the resemblance and how constant the communication between Nineveh and Jeru- salem."

This visible influence of Assyrian civilization on that of the Greeks on the one hand, and on that of the Hebrews on the other, was so great that it may be said to connect Homer with the Bible, whilst it necessitates the study of Assyrian monuments by any artist anxious faithfully to represent biblical scenes, and largely increases the importance, the charm, and the utility of recent discoveries. It


ASSYBIAN SCULPTURE. 47

promises to open a large field for the investigations of science, at the same time that it adds an entirely new chapter to the history of art.

Thirty years ago the name of the Assyrians was only to be found in books ; it had never appeared in the catalogue of a museum. It was in 1 842 that M. P. E. Botta, French consul at Mosul, guided by hints given by M. Rich as early as 1820, and by local traditions, conceived the idea, which will be his glory, of searching the ruins of the ancient capital of the Assyrian kings. He began his operations under the hillock Koyunjik, at the north of the village of NiniouaK the name of which still bears witness to the site of Nineveh, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, of that Nineveh said by the prophet Jonas to be "three days' journey" in circumference. Not disheartened by the paltry results of his first efforts, he set to work again near the village of Khorsabad, about sixteen kilometres to the north-east of Mosul, on the left bank of a stream which flows into the Tigris, after passing over the walls of ancient Nineveh. There his well-directed efforts were crowned with com- plete success ; he discovered an entire palace, with its walls, doors, rooms, and decorations perfect. They were laid bare and dug from the depths of the earth, and the principal objects which could be


48 ASSYBIAN SCULP TUBE,

removed were taken to France by way of the Tigris and Bagdad, and arrived at Paris in February, 1847. This palace of Khorsabad, the spoils of which have enriched the Louvre, was probably a pleasure chiteau, a Versailles of the princes of Nineveh. From the royal inscription repeated several times on fragments brought to Paris — Sargotiy great king, powerful king, king of the kings of tlie country of Assur — we may reasonably suppose that the palace of Khorsabad was built by Sargon, son or father of Sennacherib. As Sargon, according to the calcu- lations of chronologists, reigned between the y^ars 720 and 668 B.C., the building of Khorsabad must have preceded the reign of Cyrus, the destroyer of the Assyrian empire, by a century and a half ; it must have been contemporary with the sons of Codrus, archons of Athens, and with the foundation of Rome at the epoch assigned to the king or myth, Numa Pompilius.

Begun by M. Botta, these fortunate excava- tions were continued with the same success by M. Victor Place, whilst MM. Jules Oppert and Thomas (after Fulgence Fresnel, who fell a victim to the climate) made others on the site of Babylon and that of Borsippa, the Tower of languages, the Tower of Babel.*

• In i860, M. Place discovered a large room in the Palace of


ASSYBIAN SCULPTURE, 49

But these excavations were made so near British territory that the English were anxious to find similar treasures for themselves. In 1845 Mr, Layard discovered, in a desert place called Nimrod, where the little river Zab-Ala flows into the Tigris, four palaces, the most ancient of which was founded by one of the predecessors of Sargon, whose name read thus, Assur Akk-Baly indicates the Sardanapalus of the Greeks ; besides two little temples, one dedicated to the Assyrian Hercules, and the other to the Fish-god^ probably the Oannes of the Babylonians and the Dagon of the Philis- tines, whose image fell before the ark, and whose temple was destroyed by Samson. In 1849 Mr. Layard extended his researches to Koyunjik, even


Khorsabad, which he called the magazine of jars^ probably the cellar of the Assyrian kings. It contained an immense number of clay jars, like the itiBoi of the Greeks, and the Tinajas^ used for keeping wine and oil, introduced into Spain by the Arabs. He also discovered long colonnades of columns in moulded clay, the external ornaments of the palace, besides the eight dpors of the old villa let into the walls and opening on to paved alleys, amongst which was one true monument of art, a triumphal arch. The gynecaea of the palace ; the buttresses entirely cased in painted and enamelled bricks ; and some statues in gypsum marble, which were probably mere caryatids, were also found by M. Place ; and he it was who had the immense bulls, of which we shall presently speak, brought to the Louvre, which weigh no less than 3 5, ocx> kilogrammes each, and had to be brought from Khorsabad to the Tigris, on enormous chariots drawn by a team of six hundred men.

E


50 ASSYRIAN SCULPTUBK

to the site of Nineveh, where he found a palace, supposed to be that of Sennacherib himself, far larger and richer in art objects than that of Khor- sabad.* He then proceeded to Karamlfes and to Kalab-Shergat, so that the British Museum in its turn received many precious relics of Assyrian civilization. Since then excavations have been carried on simultaneously by France and England, and the interesting results are divided between London and Paris. We must own that the British Museum may justly pride itself on possessing a larger> more varied, and more choice collection than the Louvre— a collection which offers a wide field for archaeological discovery and study, and must challenge the surprise and admiration of every artist ; but at the same time, the inferiority in num- ber, variety, and excellence of workmanship of the relics in the Louvre, is in a manner atoned for by the paramount importance of some of the single monuments in the French museum.

In the first rank are the four immense colossi from Khorsabad, the height of which exceeds four

  • In the subterranean palace of Koyunjik, Mr. Layard explored

sixty-one rooms, all covered with sculptured slabs, which form a series of sculptures about two English miles long ; and Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, who succeeded him as director of these excavations, dis- covered other rooms, better preserved and elegantly furnished with alabaster tables, which were destined for the British Museum.


ASSYRIAN SCULPTUSE. El

metres. Of equal size and symmetrical with each other on opposite sides, pairs of them formed the front pilasters or frames of one of the doors of the palace. In front they have a man's head, with



-.JU*


long hair, and a beard curled and arranged in a marvellous manner, and wearing a double row of horns, and a dotted mitre or tiara surmounted


52 ASSYRIAN SCULPTURE.

by feathers, — placed on the chest and legs of a bulL On the inner side, the right of one, the left of the other, these colossi have bulls* bodies with the hair on the flanks and of the tail curled like the beard ; and, as in the Chimaera of Lycia, bearing long wings upon the shoulders. Two other winged bulls with human faces, exactly like those just described, only rather shorter, were placed at a right angle, head to head, to form the external decoration of the door. As other doors opening in the fagade of the building had similar ornaments, the backs and wings of the bulls almost touched each other. Between them, and consequently at an equal distance from each door, there was a high and deep niche cut out of the wall, which supported one of the two other colossi brought to the Louvre, those gigantic men holding a sort of rounded club in the right hand, and strangling a lion, which is defending itself with its claws, under the left arm. This lion, instead of the ordinary length of five metres, is no larger than a small dog. All the colossi, men and bulls, are of alabaster. The sym- bolical meaning of the giant with the club is not yet entirely made out, but it is, no doubt, a person- ification of strength, perhaps the Assyrian Her- cules. The man-bull was evidently the Assyrian symbolic image of the king, whose name occurs in


ASSTIilAN SCULPTURE. 53

the legend inscribed between the animaFs legs ; and it signified intelligence combined with force, just as the sphinx, or man-lion, a type of the same things, was to the Egyptians the image of the Pharaoh whose name is decided by the inscriptions on the body and at the base.*

At London, as in Paris, relics of Assyrian art consist almost entirely of bas-reliefs sculptured on tablets or grey alabaster slabs, which were used to cover the walls of clay bricks. These reliefs are very low and flat, in fact, scarcely raised at all ; they are finely carved and carefully polished, and the design would be truly beautiful, pure, and severe, if the eyes and shoulders were not almost always both seen in profile figures, and if the shape of the hands and legs were not merely conven- tionalt

But we must own that the features and muscles are often so well brought out as to express cha-

  • At Nimroud and Koyimjik, lions with a human head have been

found, which exactly resemble the sphinxes of Egypt; only they have the Assyrian tiara on the head, instead of the Egyptian claft.

t It has been conjectured that these two eyes in a profile have a typical meaning, and may signify that the god or king could see on every side at once ; but is it not more reasonable to ascribe them to convention and the inexperience of the artist ? We must also bear in mind the undeniable physical fact, that in the eastern races, whose faces are far rounder than those of Europeans, the eye is never seen in profile in the same clear and marked manner as with us.


54 ASSYRIAN SCULPTURE.

racter, and that the compositions on these Assyrian tablets are more varied and fuller of movement and life than the hieratic sculptures of Egypt. Some are of opinion, we ourselves amongst others, that the exaggeration of physical activity and of expres- sive gestures marks a very advanced state of art, or rather a decadence from a superior style like that of the 19th dynasty in Egypt New dis- coveries are foretold which will prove this theory, and bring to light earlier and more crude speci- mens of Assyrian art. Let us become prophets also, and hope that it may be so.

The Assyrian tablets must have been pictorial annals, stone chapters of history commemorating the chief events of the history of the Assyrian people, or, rather, of their kings. The king (what king none know with any certitude)* appears again and again in all these sculptured pictures. He is easily recognised because he is always followed by an umbrella-bearer, a fly-flapper, or by musicians ; and because he wears the tiara, and the Ferpuher, or winged image of divinity, hovers above his head. In one of these representations of the king wearing

  • It is however agreed that this figure represents one of the

Assyrian monarchs alluded to in the Scriptures (the book of Kings, Isaiah, Ezra, &c.), such as Sargon, Sennacherib, Assur-Akh-Bal, Nebuchadnezzar (or rather Nabaucaudaurroussour, "The god Nabou protect my family !").


ASSYRIAN SCULPTURE, 55

the tiara, the figure is entirely painted on alabaster in different colours. The soles of the king's san- dals were red. The wearers of the red heels of Versailles did not guess how very old was this new fashion.

The subjects of these bas-reliefs are very varied, very complicated, uniting in one frame, men, ani- mals, plants, and buildings ; in fact, forming true historical pictures. Of course, battles and sieges abound. In the first we generally see the king on his war chariot, charges of cavalry, archers launch- ing their arrows, prisoners led along with their hands bound, corpses devoured by eagles and vul- tures. In the second, the besieged town is gene- rally surrounded by water, and has a double or triple tier of walls with battlements ; and it is attacked by rolling towers or battering rams, the besieged pouring fire upon their enemies, and en- deavouring to avert the blows of the engines by entangling them in chains. When a town is taken, we see women flying in chariots drawn by young oxen, or a man escaping on a camel. These repre- sentations of battles and sieges give us a clear and complete idea of the mode of warfare in this remote age ; and bearing in mind that these alabaster slabs are about three thousand years old, it is surprising how little the art of war changed until the intro-


56 ASSYBIAN SOU LP TUBE.

duction of gunpowder. Almost everywhere, and in almost every age we find the same weapons, the same operations of attack and defence. Amongst the bas-reliefs of London, the best for study, as being fuller of movement and variety, are the Siege of a town by a king, supposed to be Assur-Akh- Bal I. ; a battle of Assur-Akh-Bal III. against the Susians ; the triumph of this king after victory ; and the Erection of a colossal bull by a gang of slaves under the orders of Sennacherib.

The chase of the lion or the wild bull, which were hunted with spears and arrows, is also often the subject of bas-reliefs. The king is always pre- sent in his chariot, receiving the victims slain ; indeed, the king is everywhere. Sometimes we have only his full-sized or half-length portrait ; sometimes he is directing the march of troops across the mountains or through the woods ; sometimes he is receiving ambassadors and offering them peace, holding two arrows in his hand ; or he is celebrating some religious rite before the sacred tree ; or he is crossing a river, still in his chariot, on a boat with a helm, manned by four rowers and a pilot, around which swim horses and fishes. This boat is guided through the water by a man who swims before it, kept afloat by an inflated leather bottle. Even now the rafts used on the Tigris and


A8SYBIAN SCULPTURE. 57

Euphrates are balanced by leather bottles filled with air. We have already remarked that the canoes used on the Nile at the present time exactly resemble those found in the sepulchral chambers ; probably the gondolas of the lagoons of Venice will be retained for centuries. One of the tablets in the Louvre is, without doubt, the account and memorial of an expedition by river or by sea. In water without perspective, we see amongst the fishes several boats one above the other, with prows in the shape of horses* heads, and half-open sides, showing the rowers bending over their oars. Some of these vessels are loaded with the trunks of trees, which explains the answer of Hiram, king of Tyre, to Solomon, when he was asked for some cedar wood for the building of the temple : " My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon unto the sea, and I will convey them by sea in floats unto the place that thou shall appoint me" (i Kings v. 6-9). Another, more true to life and better executed, represents several led horses. We are told by Xenophon (Cyropaedia iii. ch. 5) that their horses were so wild and spirited that the Assyrians were obliged always to keep them bound. Faithfully copied from nature, these bas-reliefs have all the delicacy of limb and graceful vigour of the Arab horses ; and, combined with the testimony of the


58 ASSYRIAN SCULPTURE.

book of Job, these monuments incontestably prove that this race has been perpetuated to our own day, without alteration or the admixture of alien blood, as the primitive and perfect type of that beautiful and useful servant, justly called by Buffon, " man's noblest conquest" From another slab we learn that horses, oxen, and dromedaries were not the only animals employed in war, or as beasts of burden by the Assyrians. We see a team of men, prisoners, serfs, or subjects, yoked in pairs to the pole of a car. It was these human teams which drew the alabaster from the quarry, and took the colossal images of the kings and gods to the gates of the palace.

In some of the Assyrian marbles the kings are exchanged for divinities. The latter generally wear a conical cap adorned with two or three horns, and in their hands they hold different symbols : an ear of bearded wheat, a fir-cone, a reed basket, or a flowering tree. At the Louvre we have a curious personification of the god (probably Baal or Nes- roch) with four large outspread wings, like the Egyptian Neith or Minerva, the cherubims of the temple of Solomon, the Proserpine (Persephone) of paganism and the divinities of ancient Etruria, Aplu (Apollo), Hercla (Hercules), Tinia (Bacchus), Thalna (Juno).


ASSYBIAN 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-de-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 yet 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 of Kalah-Shergat may, in the hands of a future ChampoUion, 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


I


60 A88YBIAN SCULP TUBE.

The English and French museums contain 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 arrow-headed character by the English.

Through the efforts which have been made since the time of the traveller Chardin, by Niebuhr the Dane, Grotefend, Rask, Lassen, E. Burnouf, by . Colonel Rawlinson and Dr. Hincks in England, and by MM. Jules Oppert and Joachim M^nant 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 Athalie the proud yeAu), and Hazael, who was made king of the same country by the prophet Elisha, about 885 B.C.


ASSYBIAN 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 beauty. (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.

\ ^ 7E must now say a few 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 Uj^zi at Florence; the little statue called IdolinOy which is probably a Mercury ; the


ETRUSCAN SCULPTURE.


63


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



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 BCULPTURE.

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 Ccere (the more ancient Agylla, the modem 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. 65

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 Phoenician — 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


66 ETRUSCAN 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 rhytonsy 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 {campance). Unlike those of the agro romano, the vases of Nola have the figures in brick or afitique red {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 that they soon ceased to be regarded as mere domestic 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 day ; the jars or amphorcSy called ;j^€/>a/Lto9 or inQo^ 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 rising 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.


68 ETRUSCAN SCULPTURE.

For the same reason, on account of their form, we may notice the vetri antichiy 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 vetri antichi 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 theni having been buried in the ground for centuries, are still stained with the thin coating or film produced by mineral decomposition, called patma by the Italians, which is also found on marbles which have b^en long underground. On glass it produces beautiful golden and silver 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 pictur 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 ofthe Belvedere. (Rome. Vatican.)



Fig. 28.— The Laocoou. (Rome.)


GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 141

solemn words '* Apollo Belvedere,^' aLnticipates 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 fdte held by the Romans on the 1st 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 NiobCy 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 picturse et statuarise artis pr£Eponendum.


142 GRECIAN 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 ^neidy in which Virgil tells the fate of the high priest of Nepjtune, 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 Meleager) 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 ifs from antiquity. But 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 Apollonius, 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


GRECIAN SCULPTURK. Wi

old ^e, when he was almost blind, he stiil 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. jg. — The Dancing Fauii. (Napli


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 degli Studj at Naples, there are


144 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.

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 Faun; the Drunken Faun^ leaning over his bottle and snapping his fingers ; the Seated Mercury y 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 Studj, the Venus of Capua 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 SCULPTURE. 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 FlorUy 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 le3s 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


146 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.

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 Pkysiognomid).



The Famese BuU, (Naples


The enormous group to which the name of the Toro Famese has been given, was found with the Flora and the Hercules. According to Pliny, it was Asinius Pollio who brought it from Rhodes to


GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 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 the 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 was 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 equal in this respect to the marvellous Laocootiy 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 and the Eagle ; a semi-colossal sitting statue of the Apollo CitharceduSy 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 sustaining 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 SCULPTURE. 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 Chimcera^ 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 GBECIAN 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 cellUy 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 vitrecBy nebula lineUy venius 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 monument 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 Phigateian 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 LapithcBy the latter that of the Greeks and Amazons y 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 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.

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 Mausolus, 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 PUron, but sub- sequently Mausoleuniy 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. VioUet-le-Duc remarks, they might have been called romantic at that early date. In the conquests of the Romans and Parthians, the Mausoleum shared


GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 153

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 ruins of a Grecian


154 GBECIAN 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 the 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. Beule.

"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^ rosittesy ffiecenders, 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 Doric 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. 155

the double temple, dedicated to Minerva Polias, and to Pandrosus (the daughter of Cecrops who 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 Mycenae, 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 Prytaneum 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 boustrophedon^ 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 SCULPTURE.

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-preserved 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 Minerva 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 between Egyptian art,


QBECIAN SCULPTURE. 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 Kanephora, 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 Minerva (Parthenos), it was called the Parthenon (or Virgin's Chamber). The Persians under Xerxes, who 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 Hecatompedon^


158 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.

because the fafade 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 y which occupied the most prominent part of the Acropolis on a high pedestal, and which rivalled that great Zeus Olympius 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 god 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 um is still to be seen. (Pausanias, ElicU, chap, xi.)


GRECIAN SCULPTURE, 159

aegis 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 of 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 yupiter OlympitiSy which, like the Warrior

Minervay was a chryselephantine statue, that is, one formed of gold and ivory, was inscribed : "Pheidias, Athenian, son of Charmides, made me."


160 QBECIAN 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 Olympius and the Hera of Santos^ until

then preserved in the city of Constantine, did not of

course spare the Pallas of Athens. And, lastly,

when Roger de Flor and his Aragonese adventurers

took Attica from the Grecian empire (13 12), when

the Venetians took it from the Aragonese (1370),

and when Mahomet IL wrested it from the

Venetians, we can imagine that no class of pillage or

devastation was spared. But the conquest of the


GRECIAN SCULP TUBE, 161

zealous Turkish iconoclasts was not the last 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 171 5, after many bloody battles, and when in 1 82 1 all Greece rose against her Egyptian and Turkish masters, and during the nine years that the war of 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 Selim III., whose policy and actions he guided, pillaged the temples of Greece without ceremony, although not without excuse, and took

M


162 GRECIAN SCULPTUBE.

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 celluy 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,


GBECIAN SCULPTURE. 163

SO that it is easy to see what place each one oc- cupied in the original plan. The subject is the general procession of the grand Panathenaic (Panathena^a) 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



F g 32 — God F e 33 — Young Mar

(Frieie of the Parthenon.)


years, and the lesser Panathentete appointed by Theseus were annual. In the grand f^tes 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


164


GRECIAN SCULPTURE.


Louvre), and their 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 cella 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-— CavrJier. Fig. 35.— Cavaliers.

(Frieze of the Patthenon.)

all seated in pairs : Jupiter and Juno, Ceres and Triptolemus, ^sculapius 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 offered to the gods. After the females come the victims destined for


GRECIAN SCULPTURE. 165

sacrifice, the chariots and charioteers, the metceciy 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 chlamys 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 were 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


1G6 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.

character between flill 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 Lapithx,



Fig. 36.— Metope of the Parthenon.

a people of Thessaly then governed 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


OBECIAN SCULPTURE. 167

half men and half horses, because like the gaiichos 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 fagades 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 PallaSy when she sprung


168 GRECIAN 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 Pheidias, 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 Parnopos (from "Kopvo^y 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 wind, 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 Csesarea, 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 them. 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 try 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 fagade of the old HecatompedoUy 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 Miiller, who was followed by M. M. Beul6 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 them 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 Moli^re, 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 !


QBECIAN 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 zegis in his hand The great Olympus trembled beneath the pointed lance of the warrior



Fig. 37. — Heads of Horses. (From the Parthenoit.]

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 (Helios, 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 ThalamoSy one 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- ings 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* Parcae. If so, it will justify my remark in speaking of the picture of the Fates, by Michael Angelo, that the


174 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.

Greeks, in their excessive love of the beautiful, made the ParccBy 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



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 CecropSy 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 ApteroSy or Victory without Wings, who 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 ephem^re, Trois mille ans ont passe sur la cendre d'Hom^re, Et, depuis trois mille ans, Homere respecte Est jeune encor de glbire et d'immortalite ;

he had before his mind two Homeric poems which had been preserved without alteration, first in the


GRECIAN SOULFTUSE. ITT

memory of men, then in frail writing, and lastly in imperishable printmg The arts are not so fortunate as letters ; for masmuch 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— Toiso.

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 Hippotytus : Triste objet ou des Dieux Iriomphe la colere,


El que meconnaitrait I'ceil m^me de son p^re.


178 GRECIAN SCULPTURE.

But 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, like 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 Elign 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 fagades. If these incomplete fragments, these accessory portions, be so fervently admired, so passionately worshipped, what 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 anothen 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.


/^"^ UR 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 Toro FarnesCy 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 their 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 It OMAN SCULPTURE,

who were reduced to the positions of artisans in Rome, were but images of their deified Caesars and their libertine 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. Statuce 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 degl' 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 chijdren, there are sixty-nine ; from Pompey (who would doubtless be rather


SOMAN SCULPTURE. 183

surprised at being included amongst the emperors) and Cxsar, who should properly begin t



Fig. 41. — Agrippini of Germanicus. (Rome ) to Constantine, and even Quintihus who reigned but twenty days. 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 AntinoiiSy the finest of all the statues of Hadrian's devoted friend ; and a


ROMAN SCULPTURE.


Julius Ctesar, 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. 41. — Antinous.


Papal city has preserved. The proverb which says " a saint is at home in his shrine," would apply to CiEsar in the Capitol, near to a fine statue


186 BOMAN SCULPTURE.

of Triumphant Rome^ and seated between two captive kings, not far from the celebrated Wolff, venerated by the ancient Romans, and immortalised by 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-


ROMAN SCULPTURE. 187

siderable town, proves the high position occupied in those days by the patrician families, who held whole populations in fief.

The series of Roman emperors in the Louvre is not so complete as that in the Uffizi 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 iconicce^ 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 AugtistuSy 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 {CaprecB)^ 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 of 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, the paludamentunt 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 Liviuy the wife of Augustus, represented 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- manicus, 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 NerOy triumphant, not over the conspi- racy of Piso, or that of Vindex, but in chariot races, or in trials of skill on the cithara (xtOapa) 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 Titus, doubtless sculptured when he returned from the sack of Jerusalem before he became the peaceful and benevolent prince who was called delicia 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 ocrece or greaves (the KprffuSe^ 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 Dacae, 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 TiridateSy to w^hom Nero gave the kingdom 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 anaxyrideSy and the sampkerUy 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 ROMAN SCULPTURE.

him as Hercules, but probably the head only is that of Antinous, and the body that of Commodus ; the other, as Aristaeus, 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 petasus^ or straw hat, the half tunic which leaves the right arm free, and the leather boots called perones.

Amongst the Roman busts we will briefly name in chronological order : an Agrippa, an excellent portrait of the real conqueror of Actium. A Dotni- tiiis Corbuloy 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 AntinoiiSy as Osiris, who once had the lotuSy the sacred plant of Egypt, on his head, precious stones in his eyelids, and gilt bronze draperies on his shoulders. A Lucius Verus, a delicate and pleasing portrait of the adopted brother of Marcus Aurelius, of that effeminate type of Roman petits-mattres^ who powdered their hair and beard with gold dust. A Septimus Severus^ wearing the ancient mantle


ROMAN SCULPTURE. 193

of heavy stuff, called Uena by the Romans, and 'XkcLiva or 'xKoevrj by the Greeks. It is mentioned by Homef, 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 to the left, in imitation of Alexander the Great. A PlautillUy the wife of this insane monster. A Matidia^ the amiable and virtuous niece of Trajan. A Faustina^ mother of the first Antoninus ; a younger Faustina^ the lascivious wife of Marcus 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 or galericulum)^ 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 R OMAN SCULP TUBE.

solemn sacrifices which were offered up every five years in each quarter gf the Eternal City, called suovetauriliuy because the magistrate ordered the victimarii to immolate a pig (sus), a sheep {ovis)y and a bull {taurus). 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^ a 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-relief we see the straight trumpet of the Roman infantry (the tubd)y and the curved trumpet of the cavalry (the lituus). The PrcBtorian 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 fulminans.

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 SCULP TUBE. 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 arty 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 Moli^re, which are admirable because he succeeded in giving expres- sion to the eyes, without which there can be neither life nor resemblance.


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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 Caesars, 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, ker 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 hronzQ Alexander oi Lysippus, after having a picture painted of himself one hundred and twenty feet high, which Pliny called insanium inpictura. 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 Saviour 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 that 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 SCULPTURE. 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


200 MODERN SCULPTURE.

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 qtia etiam nunc in templis fanisque consistunty

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.


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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 Dsedalus; 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 huge stride over the entire interval between

4

the Antonines and the Renaissance, and begin our work with the Middle Age.


202 ITAIJAN SCULPTURE.

It was not at Rome, but in ancient Etruria, in republican Tuscany, that the revival of the arts began, 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 imitating it in the pulpits of Siena and Pisa, and later in the tomb of St Dominic at Bologna. He was called Nicola delV urna^ 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, Dcedalus 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 Agnolo of Sienna ; then Andrea of Pisa ; Andrea Orcagna, a universal artist, a Michael Angelo anticipated ;* and lastly, Ghiberti, Donatello, Delia Robbia, and Sansovino, all of Florence.

  • He signed his sculptures, Fece Andrea di Cione, pittore ; and

his paintings, Fece Andrea di Cione, scultore.


ITALIAN SCULPTURE, 203

Lorenzo Ghiberti (1378 — 1455) is chiefly known as the 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 gales, 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 Vecckio, a bronze Judith; to the Uffizi Gallery, an Elfin Dancey 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 competitors.


204 ITALIAN SCULPTURE.

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 stem and conscientious Donatello, who, in the midst of the fStes given at Padua in his honour, could write down the profound thought : " If I remained here, where every one 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 John the Baptist to the St. George of the Or-San-Michele at Florence alone, and the Fra Barduccio Cherichini, in one of the niches of the Campaniley is the only sculpture preferred to it. The last named, commonly called lo Zuccone (the 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 only part glazed is the white cloth round the loins. The Virgin adoring the Infant Saviour^ 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, ^^d l^ft ^ Bacchus 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 by the doge, Andrea Gritti, after having first worked at Rome under Julius II. Duke Cosmo, Duke Hercules, and Pope Paul III. all urged him to devote his


206 ITALIAN SCULPTURE,

double talent, as a sculptor and an architect, to their respective capitals, 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 Evangelists 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 two friends, Titian and Aretino, who, however, can lay little claim to sanctity.

The equestrian statue of the famous condottiere Bartolommeo Colleoni of Bergamo, in the small lateral piazza of the church of San Giovanni San Paolo (in common parlance, San Zanipold) 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 SCULPTUSE.


207


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




^e- 43- — Equestrian siatue of Baitolommeo 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 SCULPTURE.

This age can also claim onie 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 Duomo 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 like 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 SCULPTURE. 209

the time at which he lived, are alike unknown, and I know of no other production of his chisel. Most probably, like a Benedictine, he worked all his life at this kind of infolio in marble, and 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 anpi the varied character of their fantasies enabled them to command, and while 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 towards

P


210 ITALIAN SCULPTURE.

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." t

The mask of a faun's head, sculptured by Michael Angelo in marble as an aniusement 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 degl* 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 ?"

  • Historian of painters and sculptors, you are now forgetful of

Fra Angelico, Masaccio, and Leonardo da Vinci I t Mrs. Jonathan Forster's translation. Vol. v. pp. 227 and 22S.


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 of 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 efFecisset 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 SCULPTURE.

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 Drunken Bacchus, which is probably his most



Fig 44. — Ivy crowned Bacchus. (FIoi


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. 2l3

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 effects 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 Hercules, sent to Charles VIII. of France ; in 149S, 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 Lorenzo, 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 VI L, 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 Infant Jesus, is from the hand of the great master, with the ex- ception of the statues of Saints Cosmo and Damian, b)r his pupils MontorsoH and Raffaello da Mon- telupo. On one side .is the Mausoleum of Giuliano 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 che tu vedi in si dolci atti Dormire, fu da iin angelo scolpita In questo sasso ; e, perchfe 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* h il sonno, e piu I'esser di sasso, Mentre che il danno e la vergogna dura ; Non veder, non sentir, m'^ gran ventura. Per6 non mi destar : deh ! parla basso. t

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

  • *^ Nighty 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 nothing. Therefore wake me not : ah ! speak low."


216 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 Sceleratus — 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 ; clnd 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 Judgmenty 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 Victoryy 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.t 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 JuUus ; ** I know nothing of letters."

t There were to have been four large figures : Active and Co«- tetnplative Life, St, Paul, and the Moses, (Vasari.)


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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 goafs, and whose peculiar eyes were called occkj 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 SCULPTURE.

Sansovino, Puget, or Canova. \ 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 stem legislator of the Hebrews, armed with the terrible Law. I do not believe that, celebrated as they were in antiquity, the Jupiter OlympiuSj 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


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affirmed more than ever to merit his name of the friend of God ; and to Michael Angelo 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 Brutus 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 forms ^ as he himself called them, of which the human figure is always made up in every attitude and every variety of action.


222 ITALIAN JSCULPTUBE.

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 Madonna 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 Raphael's Madonna 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.


224 ITALIAN SCULPTURE.

although noble and dignified, is not very severe ; and this, together with the somewhat fastidious delicacy 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 work 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 (15CX) — 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 FontainebleaUy 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 Dor^e 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 Cavalier e Bernini (1598 — 1680), who was ostentatiously called the second Michael Angelo, 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 nim 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 coming as he did, when the decadence had set in,


ITALIAN SCULPTURE, 2-27

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 a recumbent Christ under a sheet, through which the outline of the nose, shoulders, and knees may be discerned ; the statue of a woman, z^^di Modesty, because she is completely covered with a kind of damp, clinging garment ; and lastly, the allegorical personification


1^28 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, that 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 must 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 SCULPTURE. 229

this urn his chisel is suspended, and the following inscription engraved : —

Quod mutui amoris monumentum Idem glorise 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 fnonumento di Rezzonico to Clement XIII. ; and lastly, in the Vatican, such of his sculptures as have received the perilous honour of being mixed with the most valuable relics of ancient Greece. These are, the Wrestlers, Damoxenus and Creugas^ 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 glory.

t See the history of these pugilists in Pausanias. (Book xiii. chap. 40.)


230 ITALIAN SCULPTURE.

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 aflfected. The Medusa's head


ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 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 old man. On the threshold a weeping spirit, the symbol of the husband, left behind upon the earth, leans against


232


ITALIAN SCULPTURE.


a lion. 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,



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 which 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 SOULPTUHK

man-bul!, into a man-horse, a centaur." His action under the weight of Theseus, who presses his throat



with the left arm and his stomach with one knee, is most happily rendered, and full of enet^. The

  • It is possible, that in spite of Ihe name given to this famous

group, the sculptor intended lo represent not Thaeus staying the Minotaur, but Theseus killing Ihe Centaur Eurytion, who carried olT the beautiful Hippodamia at the wedding of Pirithous. It is ihe subject of one of the most va,luable monochrome drawings on marble found at Pompeii, and collected in the museum of Naples.


ITALIAN SCULPTURE. 235

head, flung back to the crupper, which is convul- sively struggling to raise the double body, the heaving chest, the legs bent under him and appa- rently 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 beautifully 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 Zephyrus 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 i8is 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 Italian ? Were not the treasures which he restored to his country by force first taken from it by force ? And if we blamed as much 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. Dupr6, 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.

SCULPTURE 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 SCULPTURE, 239

serve as talismans, amulets, and scarecrows, 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 thepi 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 Jeromey 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


240 SPANISH SCULP TUBE.

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- giano 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 Charies 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 ckambre. 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


242 SPANISH SCULPTURE.

see Louis XIV. as Apollo, with the rays and the 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 Plus 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.

Gaspar Becerra (i 520 — 1 570), 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 (Nutstrdi, Sefiora de la Soledad), which was ordered by the


SPANISH SCULPTURE. 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 were 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 BCULPTUBE. 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 Angel o, because he cultivated the three arts of design. His name was Alonzo Cano (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 retable 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 Montaiies, 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


246 SPANISH SCULPTURE.

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 retabUy 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 Museo 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 sculpture 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 Gin^s of Valencia, flourished in the first half of the


248 SPANISH SCULPTURE.

present century. The details of these groups are of an infinite variety ; the execution is strangely and wonderfully powerful ; and if fliey 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.


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CHAPTER IV.

GERMAN SCULPTURE.

SCULPTURE 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 Krafft 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 SCULPTURE. 251

Diirer, so that he does not belong even to the 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 y in yellow copper ; the Triumph of Maximilian^ deli- cately and carefully carved in wood ; the Repose in Egypty 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 SCULPTURE.

It was the same during the age of the three schools of German painting at Nuremberg, Augs- burg, and Dresden, represented by Albert Diirer, 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- iiess 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


GERMAN SCULPTURE. 253

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 PF^r (1618—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


254 GERMAN SCULPTURE.

lo Ariadne on the Panther, signed, Dannecker, of Stuttgart, 1814. This Ariadne is very celebrated, at least on the borders of the Rhine, from Mann- heim to Coblentz. The inhabitants of Frankfort> pride themselves on its possession, and have treated



Fig. 49.— Ariadne on the Panlber. By Dannecker. < Frankfort-on -the - M dn. )

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 think it far beneath its repu-


GERMAN SCULPTURE, 255

tation. T\\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 fi 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 Angelos for comparisons : we find Dannecker's A riadne far surpassed by the Magdalene 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,


266 GEBMAN 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 Golden 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 surr rounding it, this Jason appears an incomparable masterpiece.

At the same time, but at Berlin, Christian Ranch (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. Ranch represented her reposing on her tomb, and he made another statue of her on foot for Potsdam.



!■ ig SO — Bronze monument erected lo the memory of Frederick the Great B/ Christian Rauch (Berhn )


QEBMAN SCULPTURE, 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, Rauch 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, Bliicher, 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 185 1, 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 true founder.

We said that Christian Rauch founded a school : it still exists, carried on by his pupils, amongst

S


268 GESMAN SCULPTURE.

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



Fig. SI.— The Amazon, by Aug. Kiss. (Berlin.)


the Thiergarten 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. 2SJ)

The warrior- maiden of the Thermodon, excited by anger rather than by terror the queen of the desert, clinging to the horse s neck with teeth and claws ; the horse quivenng beneath her horrible embrace, are all most powerfully rendered, and



Fig. 51. — 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 arc emitted from his nostrils ! If the rider touch him


260 GERMAN 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 Rauch, Ernest Rietschel, a Saxon (1804— 1 86 1 ), took the lead in German sculpture. Amongst others, the following works are ascribed to him : a fine group of the Madonna adoring her Dead Son^ which the Italians called a Pieta ; the marble statues of the four great sculp- tors of Greece, placed in the fa9ade of the new museum of Dresden ; and the beautiful bronze group of Goethe and Schiller, which was cast at Munich, in 1857, by Herr Miiller, and now adorns the Theater- 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.


GERMAN 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.

We 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, which at once became famous ; an Adonis, which Canova himself called


262 GERMAN SCULPTURE.

a masterpiece ; the Graces, the Muses, Venus, Apollo, Mercury; then a Madonna 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



^■E- S3- — Entrance of Alexander into Babylon, by Thorwaldsen. 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 Christiansboig 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

Thorwaldsen 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 Low 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 indifferently 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 sculpture.


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 Damey 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 SCUBPTUBE.

engraved the motto of this enterprising and per- severing prince, ^e Vay ampris^ bien en aviengne. It would have been well to inscribe on his tomb the words pronounced by Duke Ren6 of Lorraine when the corpse of Charles was found after the battle of Nancy : Voire dme ait Dieu, beau cousin^ car vous avez fait moult maux et douleurs. 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 oma* 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 of 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 archfes three feet high, the cloisters, in which pace figures fifteen inches long, the pinnacles, the little angels,


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 Vousonne, and by Jacques de Baerz, all three image-makers to the duke of Bur- gundy. The tomb of John 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 deliberate 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 daughter 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 SCULPTURE. 269

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 could 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 regret is increased that it should have 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.


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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 SCULPTURE. 27X

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 architectuire 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 "i ** 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 SCULPTUBE.

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 VI L, 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 VII.'s chapel.


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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 Andr4* 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 Americans,

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

Flaxman, 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 reguiris monumentumy circumspice.^*


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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- lefitur mortales tale tantumque extitisse ;* and lower down, Humani generis decus,\

The part of the Pantheon of England which I found most delightful and suggestive was tht. south transept, or Poets* Comer. 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

  • Let mortals rejoice that such a great genius once existed,

t Honour of the human race.


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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 labours of our translators and critics at least : old Ben Jonson, Chaucer, called the Ennius of England, Spenser, William Shake- spear, John Milton, Thomas Gray, Butler, W. Con- greve, Mason, Gay, VVyatt, 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 Instati- ratio Magna; and the latter, Byron and Walter Scott. I believe that a place is reserved for Macaulay.*

The sepulchre of the illustrious author of Para- dise Lost is not worthy 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 filled, and the names of Thackeray 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 iii 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 works of art only, we should have little to say. Some of them are remarkable for 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 §trasburg. We have already mentioned the principal monuments : of the ancient, that of Henry VII. by Torregiano ; of the modem, those of Lord Mansfield, by Flaxman, of Captain Come- 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 perh<Lps most admired is the imitation in marble of a gar- ment of coarse cloth, of which the threads may be counted — a childish fancy, reminding us of the Christ beneath the shroud 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 Warren, D.D., Lord Bishop of Bangor, and was remarkable for her benevolence. — (Trans.)


ENGLISH SCULPTURE, 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 a 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 clasp 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 Lady 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 their virtues, did by his last will order this monument to be erected." — (Trans.)


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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.


( 283 )


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 SCULPTURE.

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 Oi' the Holy Child. .

The monks of Cluny, whose order was founded by St. Bemon as early as the end of the ninth century, were not only better scholars, but also


FRENCH 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. Virtuous, 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 words 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 yEginetans 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 politic, led to the institution of communes. And this independence was often carried to audacity. "The works of this time," says M. VioUet-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 neither separate the sculpture from the architecture, nor the architecture from the sculpture.

Like the Mahommedan mosques, a Christian


FRENCH 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 florUy 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, Th^venin de St. L6gier ; Conrad Meyt and Andr6 Colomban, who executed the tomb of Philibert le Beau, in the church of Brou ; and lastly, Michel Colomb, or Michault Colomb (143 1 to 1514), 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 t/te 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

  • (QuDere. S. Saba ?— Tr .)


FRENCH 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 whona 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 XI L, 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, H61ene 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, of Louis Poucher, secretary to the king, who died m 1 521, 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 TAuxerrois to the Museum of the Louvre } Because their unknown author has produced a double masterpiece, 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 time as Leonardo da Vinci^ Andrea del Sarto, Rosso, and Primaticcio. We have already noticed his Nymph of Fontainebleau in our chapter on Italian sculpture; it is in the


FRENCH 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 strange 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, bom at Douai 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 Florentine 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-


2U FRENCH SCULPTURE.

brated bronze group of the Rape of a Sabine in the Palazzo Vecc/iio, and several statuettes in the museum Degl' Uffizi ; amongst others, a Juno, a Venus, an Apollo, a Vulcan, and the Mercury,



Fig. 55. — The Flying Mercury. known everywhere as that of Giam-BoJogna. 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 Dancing


FRENCH SCULPTURE. 295

Faun 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 way, 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 lived about 1530 — 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 marble 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, 297

hunting by Jacques du Fouilloux, huntsman to Charles IX. They may be quoted as models of race and also of the now flourishing 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 Museum of French Monuments y 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-


FRENCH SCULPTUBE.


tween two gracefully recumbent Nymphs of the Seine, a fine group of Tritons and Nereids playing on the water. "Whence did heobtain these charming forms,"



Fig, 56.— 'Fountain of the Innocents.

says Michelet, " these strange unnatural nymphs with their immensely iong 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-reliefs are in lias limestone, 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 Awaking, which seems to me to be rather a 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 InnocentSy 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 1788, the architects Poyet and Molinos removed it to the centre of the market, and a fourth side became necessary to make it complete. Pajou executed an imitation of the sculptures of Jean Goujon.


300 FRENCH SCULPTURE.

now preserved from the ravages of time, some traces of which were already 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 being included in our national treasury ? There 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 Fontaine 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 Germain Pilon. They may, indeed, have preceded him. Although we do not know the



Fig. S7- — 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 SCULPTURE.

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 haJve only one piece of sculpture and one painting from his hand — ^both, however, equally excellent. The former is the Mausoleum of Philippe de Chaboty admiral of France, which Cicognara calls the masterpiece of French sculpture in the sixteenth century. The semi-recumbent figure of the brav^ and noble admiral leans upon the helmet with the left arm. But the author of the Last Judgment and the Art of Designing (IJ Art de Desseigner) was 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 Frangois 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, Ren6 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. Bartholomew, 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


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supporting a gilt vase, intended, it is said, to con- tain the hearts of Henri 11. and Catherine de Medicis. This group, which was chiselled in a single block of marble, was ordered by the mother of the three kings (Frangois 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 GraceSy 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 (^ap^Te?), 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 subjudice lis est. But the latter supposition is the more probable.*

  • "With regard to the Greeks," say MM. Louis and Rene

Menard, **we must remark, that the great idea of which these goddesses are the expression, has been generally ill comprehended by the modems, as is always the case with a synonjrm. The word grace signifies both beneficence and elegance, and die 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 group 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, Numero Deus impure gaudety 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 Alengon), 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 origin, who is often called Mattre Ponce.


three graces for the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity ; and as the name of graces no longer suggests anything to the mind, but the childish fancies of the last century, their Greek name, charities, should be restored to these goddesses. With the ancients this word signified joy and affection, generosity and gratitude. The symbols of these three inseparable sisters, called the beneficent, the charities simultaneously expressed the gifts of the gods and the blessings of men."

Can Germain Pilon have anticipated as early as the sixteenth century the learned modem discoveries in symbolism ?

X


306 FBENOH SCUL P TUBE.

He came to France with Primaticcio, and, like him, remained there. These monuments are the tombs of Alberto Pio, of Savoy, duke of Carpi, one of the generals of Francois I., and of Charles de Magny, or Maign6, captain of the watch under Henri II. The Duke of Carpi's effigy, a bronze likeness, reclines upon the base of the tomb ; he is leaning on the left elbow, meditating on an open book. The statue of Charles de Magny, a portrait also, but in stone, is completely clothed in mail ; he sleeps in a sitting posture, his halberd in his hand : he is at his post. These two figures by Trebatti give us a very high opinion of the frenchified Italian, who has been much lauded for the boldness of his style, and to whom many of the best works of other artists have been attributed, such as the St George of Michael Colomb, and even the Admiral Chabot of Jean Cousin.

Above the Duke of Carpi, in a terra-cotta medallion, we see a head of Hercules in high relief, wearing the lion's skin. It belongs to the decora- tions of a house at Rheims, and is attributed to Pierre Jacques. Who is Pierre Jacques } Can it by happy chance be that Mattre Jacques, native of Angoul^me, who, in 1550, competed with Michael Angelo at Rome for a figure of St. Peter, and who has left some excellent wax models of a living.


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a flayed, and a dissected man ? If so, this Hercules is very valuable.

We will now continue our study of French sculpture in the Louvre, which contains scarcely any but the greatest works.

If the room next to that of Jean Goujon con- tained any more important works by Sarrazin than a bronze bust of the chancellor, Pierre Seguier, the Mausoleum of the Prince of ConcU, or that of the Cardinal de Berulle, for instance, it would certainly have been named after him and not after the Anguiers. This honour should legitimately belong to the sculptor who, in conjunction with the painter Lebrun, founded the Academy of the Fine Arts, and who, being born in 1590, and educated in Italy, forms a connecting link and represents the tran- sition between Jean Goujon and Pierre Puget, Frangois I. and Louis XIV. But if Sarrazin be set aside, his immediate predecessor, Simon Guillain (1581-1658) would perhaps have the right of naming this second French room. Guillain was the author of the bronze statues of Louis XIII., Anne of Austria, and Louis XIV. as a child, which formerly composed the Monument of the Pont au Chaitge, and are now in the Louvre. He was the master of the two brothers Anguier, who have been preferred to him. Let us resign ourselves to this choice.


303 FRENCH SCULPTURE.

In the centre of their room rises an obelisk in decorated marble with four symbolical figures round the base, Truth, Union, Justice, and Force. An inscription informs us that it is the funereal monument of Henri de Longueville. Of which ? Of the Henri I., who gained the battle of Senlis on the Ligne in 1589, or Henri II., who was one of the chiefs of the Fronde, in conjunction with his wife, Cardinal de Retz, and the Prince of Cond6 } In. any case the elder of the Anguiers, Frangois (1604- 1669), is the author of the mausoleum and also of the tombs of Jacques- Auguste de Thou and of the Princess of Cond6, Charlotte de la Tr^mouille, two marble figures kneeling in prayer. Another sepulchral monument, that of Jacques de Souvrd de Courtenvaux, together with a bust of the great Colbert, are by the younger Anguier, Michel (161 2-1686), whose name ought to be popular in Paris, for he executed, after the designs of Lebrun, the ornaments of the triumphal arch which has become the St. Denis gate, and the fine Christ on the Cross set up on the theatrical decoration intro- duced into the church of St. Roch, and called the Calvary, Although executed with care, knowledge, and talent, these various works by the two Anguiers are spoiled by their heaviness, the fault which should be especially avoided in handling marble and bronze.


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It appears that French sculpture was for a long time chiefly employed in tombs. There are two others in the same room : that of the constable Anne de Montmorency, killed at the battle of St. Denis in 156^^, and that of his wife, Madeleine de Savoie-Tende. These are two marble figures lying on their backs, with folded hands, in the old form of the tombs of the Middle Ages. These mau- soleums, together with the busts of Henri IV. and the president Christophe de Thou, are by a certain Barth^lemy Prieur, an artist but little known now, and of whom there is no record in biographies. Judg- ing by his style, however, he must have preceded the Anguiers, and probably even Simon Guillain.

He would thus be the contemporary of Pierre Francheville (1548- . . . ), whom a somewhat ex- cessive generosity has made the godfather of the last room. Surely the distorted and unsightly statues of Orpheus and of Davidy conqueror of Goliath, have not obtained this honour for the enervated pupil of Giam-Bologna ; but rather, we imagine, the four bronze figures of vanquished and chained nations, made by him for the four angles of the pedestal of Henri IV.'s statue on the Pont Neuf, of which a few fragments only now remain, it having been destroyed in the Revolution.*

  • The work of Jean de Boulogne. The horse was given to


310 FliENCH SCULPTURE.

Michael Anguier's is the last of the rooms of the Renaissance ; and the first of those containing modern sculptures is named after Pierre Puget.

Jacques Sarrazin, the companion of Simon Vouet in Italy, his friend and son-in-law in France, played the same part in sculpture as the latter in painting ; and Pierre Puget's (1622-1694) was analogous to that of Nicolas Poussin — indeed, with all his faults, he was, and still is, in my opinion, the greatest of French sculptors. In the chief beauty of his character, in his love, his enthusiasm for independence, he again resembled Poussin, and at the same time Eustache Lesueur. Like Poussin, Puget for a time tried living at court under royal patronage ; but, soon disgusted with this gilded servitude, and rebelling against the exactions of the Inspector-general of the Fine Arts, who wished him to adopt his ideas and even his designs, he returned to his native place, Marseilles, as Poussin did to Rome, and gave himself up in solitude to the suggestions of his genius. There he became a painter, sculptor, and architect, after having been a ship-builder in his youth.* His paintings, which


Marie de Medici, widow of Henri IV., by her father Cosmo II., Grand Duke of Tuscany. The statue of the royal horseman was added later.

  • Puget first conceived and carried out the idea of those huge


FRENCH SCULPTURE. 3 1 1

are pretty numerous, and of every style, have remained in the towns in which he successively resided, Genoa, Toulon, Aix, Marseilles ; * but his sculptures, which are far superior, were mostly sent to Versailles, and it was the productions of his chisel which earned him the beautiful titles of tHe Rubens of sculpture and the French Michael Angela, Although resembling Poussin in the circumstances of his life, and in his character, Puget as an artist differed essentially from the great painter of Andelys. He was carelessly and inadequately educated ; he had no .instructor in art or in letters, he saw few classical models, and he never atoned


poops, with double galleries and wooden figures, which were soon imitated everywhere in the decoration of clumsy high-decked vessels. At the age of twenty-one he made his first attempt on the ship Queen, and later he applied his invention with the greatest success, to the Magnificent of 104 guns, equipped by the Duke of Beaufort, the old Rot des Halks {Market King), when he went to aid the Venetians in Candia. Vessel and Admiral perished together on the 25th of June, 1669.

  • The museum of the last-named town contains four : the Baptism

of Clovis and the Baptism 0/ Consiantine, bearing date 1652 (when Puget was thirty years old), and much spoilt by unskilful restoration ; the Salvator mundi of 1654, better preserved and quite Italian, in the debased style of Pietro da Cortona ; and lastly, the portrait of Puget himself, of which M. L^on Lagrange says : **It represents a man forty years old, whose expression it is difficult to define ; it is a combination of natural roughness, acquired refinement and restless eagerness, the brow is full of genius, and we read the consciousness of his own genius in the eyes and mouth."


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for the faults of his early training by study and reflection. He was wanting in knowledge and in taste ; he neither knew nor understood the beauties of antiquity ; but he was as original as he was eccentric, and yielding himself unreservedly to the dictates of his mighty genius, he was pre- eminently successful in expressing life, action, power, and sometimes even passion. None ex- celled him in giving warmth to marble, and I might add, without hesitation, colour. Like Michael Angelo, he often set to work on a block without preparation, design, or sketch. Puget has hit off his own likeness at one stroke, in the letter written when he was already sixty years old to Louvois, with his group of Perseus and Andromeda :

  • ' I am nourished by great works ; I labour at them,

and the marble trembles before me, however large be the piece.'* *

Who could recognise in the Hercules in repose, without the club, or the skin of the Nemaean lion, the demigod whom the Greeks called the most beautiful of the pentathli, because his limbs were not only the most muscular, but also the most slender and supple. Looking at this coarse head,

  • The translator adds the original, which cannot be well rendered

in English : " Je suis nourri aux grands ouvrages, je nage quand j'y travaille, et le marbre tremble devant moi, pour grosse que soit ]a pi^ce."


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with turned up nose, we say to ourselves that Puget has merely copied some porter from the wharf. But at the same time, how happily im- passive action is given, how well the flesh and muscles are rendered, how instinct with life is the whole body ! Take from this statue the name of Hercules, call it only a wrestler, a market porter, and you have a perfect work.

Still more perfect, in spite of the unjust disdain of Cicognara, is the group of Milo of Crotona, devoured by a lion. As he is not a god, we do not expect him to be represented in a conventional and sacred form, and the Crotonian gives us a very fair idea of an old athlete. The life and action of ^ the body and the finished execution are alike wonder- ful, whilst the moral expression is no less excellent. In every line, from head to foot, the rage and suffering of the famous conqueror in the Greek games are admirably rendered ; his powers weak- ened by old age, and his hand caught in the cleft tree, he feels himself torn by the teeth and claws of his treacherous enemy, without the power of defending and avenging himself with the mighty fist which once felled an ox. This group not only resembles, it rivals that of the Laocoon; and we understand that when the case which brought it to Versailles was unpacked before Louis XIV., the


.3 1 4 FRENCH SCULP TUBE,

tender-hearted Maria Theresa, full of fright and pity, exclaimed, " Ah, mon Dieu, le pauvre homme !" We believe that this Milo of Crotona is considered the chef-d'oeuvre of Puget, and perhaps also of all French sculpture.

In speaking of the group ol Perseus delivering AndrofnedUy which is enlarged by a figure of Cupid aiding the son of Danae to cut the chains of the beautiful victim, Puget might well say, " however large be the piece," for I know of no modem group of greater size, and to find " a larger piece " we must turn to the Toro Farnese at Naples, which has five figures. The author does not appear to have been in the least embarrassed by the extreme difficulty of so complicated a work ; neither the clearness of the subject, the general action, nor the workmanship of the various details which make up the whole, are at all affected or impaired by it. Andromeda is pretty, delicate, and pleasing; Perseus, strong, bold, irresistible, like the son of Jupiter mounted on Pegasus. But the difference in the size of the sexes is exaggerated ; either Andromeda is a little girl, or Perseus a giant.

We notice the same disproportion fai an eques- trian statue of the Victorious Alexander^ the horse is enormous compared to the rider. But perhaps Puget intended this powerful Bucephalus, trampling


FRENCH SCULPTURE. 315

under foot confused heaps of conquered nations, to represent the various forces which the genius of Alexander held united for his distant and stupen- dous conquests. The rest of Puget's works in the Louvre are a plaster copy of two caryatides which he made for the balcony of the H6tel de Ville of Toulon ; a small tomb, in which two angels and two cherubims are grouped round a sepulchral urn, and the large and singular bas-relief representing the well-known scene of Alexander and Diogenes. This was Puget's last work, which he only finished just before his death, at the age of seventy-four. In this he again resembles Michael Angelo, whose old age was so laborious and prolific. For want of a better name, this group is called a bas-relief, but in reality it contains every kind of sculpture. Those parts which stand out, the head of Alex- ander's horse, and the legs of Diogenes lying near his tub (which should be a large earthenware vessel), are necessarily in full relief; whilst the foreground is in high, and the background in low relief, which decreases gradually in the distant perspective. This sculptured picture is an extra- ordinary feat, and I own that its very strangeness makes its author near akin to Michael Angelo, and still nearer to Algardi, but it removes him far from Pheidias; which fact, if I am not mistaken, proves


316 FRENCH SCULP TUBE,

that the arts should not encroach on one another ; that there should be no debateable land between their domains. The mission of sculpture is to gratify the taste with beautiful forms only ; at her command she has nothing tut lines, hollows, and projections ; she is to enable us to touch what painting lets us see, and sculpture has no more right to attempt pictures in marble than painting to make monochrome statues, with all the resources of colour, chiaroscuro, and perspective at her com- mand, Puget's example is decisive, as is proved by no one having followed it

The second room, that of Antoine Coysevox (1640-1720), contains a fine collection of the works of this eminent artist, who lived shortly after Puget, and resembled him in talent. Amongst them we notice particularly the Mausoleum of Cardinal Mazarin, with a Spirit bearing the lictor*s axe and three allegorical bronze figures, which makes us regret the Mausoleum of Colberty con- sidered Coysevox's principal work. A poor enough statue of the foolish Duchess of Burgundy, who wished to be represented as Diana, the fair-limbed goddess; a statue of Louis XIV., who, when young, assumed the character of Apollo, but is now depicted as old, devout, and kneeling in prayer. The busts of Richelieu, Bossuet, and F6n61on, which


FRENCH SCULPTURE, 317

were not successful likenesses ; the faces of all three are flat, the foreheads low, the heads narrow ; not at all like their painted portraits preserved to us by Philippe de Champagne and Hyacinthe Rigaud. The busts qf Pierre Mignard and Charles Lebrun, which are, on the contrary, very fine, and good likenesses. They are so superior to the former, that it is difficult to believe they are from the same hand There were, in fact, two periods in Coy- sevox's life: one of vigorous power, when he sculptured the two celebrated painters ; the other of unskilfulness or weakness, when he produced the busts of the great ministers and the celebrated writers.

It is a pity that there is no work in the Coysevox room by his rival Francois Girardon (1630-1715), "whom La Fontaine and Boileau," says Thore, " compared to Pheidias, as Moli^re compared Mig- nard to Raphael." It is true that Girardon paid court to Louis XIV. and Lebrun, and only pro- duced in marble the designs imposed on him by the arrogant president of the Academy ; but for all that the gigantic groups of Pluto carrying away Proserpine^ and Apollo descending to Thetis^ with which he adorned the gardens of Versailles, have earned him a distinguished position amongst the sculptors of the reign of the grand monarque.


318 FRENCH SCULPTUSE.

The third room is named after the brothers Coustou, Nicolas (1658-1735), and Guillaume (1678-1746), The former is the author of the group called the yuttction of the Seine and Marne,



in the Tuileries Garden ; and the latter of the famous Ecuyersox Cfievaux de Marly, aoy/ placed at the entrance to the Champs Elys^es. The works con- tained in this room would not alone have earned for


FRENCH SCULPTURE. 319

the Coustous the honour of naming it. On one side we have Louis XV. as Jupiter, in Roman costume, and Queen Maria Leczinska, as Juno ; pretentious figures in bad taste, at once feeble and theatrical.



Fig. 59.— Hidiiig-Master of Marly. (Paris, C hamps-Elysee.)

in the false and ridiculous antique style which was introduced on the stage by Lekain and others of his day. On the other side Louis XIV., in regal mantle, holding his crown and sceptre, but kneeling


320 FRENCH 8C ULP TUBE.

and bending forward in the humble attitude of his Vow to the Virgin^ like the princes of the Lower Empire naming the mother of Jesus generalissimo of •their armies. The execution of this figure renders it beautiful, and it is not even spoilt by the style. M. Ingres, probably without having seen it, has reproduced it exactly in his picture on the same subject — the Vow of Louis XIV,

This Coustou room would therefore be nearly empty, were it not filled with other works, which appear to me more interesting and remarkable. We allude to the diploma subjects successively presented by the members of the Academy of Sculpture on their admission to that body, which preceded the Institute of the Fine Arts. They are all little groups of figures a foot and a half high, some representing Christian, but the greater number mythological subjects. The rule as to size better enabled those enervated successors of Puget to compete, who knew not how to carve "large pieces," and to make the "marble tremble before them." As most of these sculptors are entirely unknown, in spite of their title of academicians, it will be useful to recall their names, and to mention one work characteristic of each.

We begin, then, with a Hercules on thepile^ by Guillaume Coustou ; a Hercules crowned by Glory ^


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in high reh'ef, by Desjardins (the Fleming, Martin Van Bogaert) ; a Jestis bearing His Cross, by Bouchardon ; a Milo of CrotonUy devoured by the lion, by Etienne Falconnet* (1706— 179 1), the friend of Diderot ; a Mercury attaching the wings to his heels, by Jean Baptiste Pigalle (1714 — 1785) ; and a River God, pouring water from his urn, by Jacques Caffieri (1723 — 1792). All these became celebrated by more important works ; Caffieri, for instance, has left excellent busts of Rotrou and the two Corneilles, in the lobby of the Thidtre Frangais, M. Thore very justly remarks : "These busts have the bold- ness of Puget, the grace of Germain Pilon, the skilful execution of Coysevox, and the spirit of Coustou."

We now proceed to enumerate those who are nearly or entirely unknown, with the single work which is to rescue them from oblivion. The Leda and the Swan, by Jean Thierry (1669 — 1739)> which anticipated the Pompadour style by thirty years.

  • Falconnet is the author of the fine bronze equestrian statue

which Catherine II. had raised to Peter the Great, in Saint Isaac's Square, at St. Petersburg. Set up on a granite rock, it bears the inscription : Petro primo Catherina secunda. To express the true thought of the foundress, it should now be changed to: Petro Magno Catherina Magna, ** The statue that the Empress of Russia raised to Peter the Great speaks to all nations from the banks of the Neva; it says : I await that of Catherine." (Voltaire, art. Beaux- artSy in the Diet. Philos.)

Y


322 FRENCH SCULPTURE.

St Sebastian at the Pillar^ by Frangois Coudray (1678 — 1727) ; and St. Andrew before his Cross, by Jean Baptiste d'Huez; two good studies of the sacred style. Hercules vanquished by Love, by Joseph Vinache (1697 — 1744), which shows more knowledge and appreciation of the antique than the Hercules of Puget. Plutus, by Anselme Flamen (. . . . — 1730). Ulysses bending his bow, by Jacques Rousseau ( — 1740), a powerful and finely- finished work. A Titan struck by thunder, by

Edme. Dumont ( — I7SS)> which merits the

same praise. Polyphemus on the rock, with the one eye in his forehead above the two empty sockets, by Corneille Van Cloves, who was no doubt a Fleming, like Desjardins. Neptune calming the waves, the Quos ego of Virgil, by Lambert Sigisbert Adam (1700 — 1759). Prometheus and the Vulture, by Nicolas S^bastien Adam (1705 — 1778), who has well expressed the contortions of acute agony and powerless rage (this is not the indomitable Prometheus of iEschylus). Lastly, a Charon, with- out the author's name ; which is, however, one of the best of these academic pieces, remarkable for the gloomy and reserved expression suitable to the ferryman of hell.

In the room of Edm6 Bouchardon (1698 — 1762), containing ^orks of the eighteenth century, we are


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surrounded by Cupids and Psyches in the true Pompadour style. And yet no one shared the spirit of his age less than Bouchardon himself. Well-educated, conscientious, and of quiet appear- ance, he avoided pomp, and lived in solitude, because, enamoured as he was of the antique, the absurdity of the fashionable costumes was re- pugnant to his taste and predilections. His style, correct and noble, but somewhat cold, needed only a few sparks of Puget's fiery enthusiasm to give it animation. We can appreciate his statues of Christ, Mary, and of eight Apostles which adorn the church of St. Sulpice, and the fine sculptures of the fountain of the Rue de Crenelle ; and we might have appreciated his equestrian statue of Louis XV., the horse of which was considered a masterpiece, had it not been destroyed in 1793. But to under- stand to what an extent this eminent artist loved and understood true beauty, in this age of the insipid shepherdesses of Boucher and his fellows, we have only to examine the Young Girl^ holding a stag by a cord, in the Louvre. The soft and pleasing attitude, the graceful form, the head, which is more than beautiful, almost grand, and the delicacy of the execution, combine to render this charming statue the most antique oi. modern works, Canova is anticipated, his spirit is here. Similar, if


324 FRENCH SCULPTURE.

not equal praise is due to the Victorious Cupid, a beautiful youth, cutting out his bow in Hercules' club with the sword of Mars, as well as to the group of Psyche and Cupid, We see the inquisitive beauty drawing near to her sleeping lover with the fatal lamp. He will flee as soon as he is known, to typify that happiness is as little enduring as a passing illusion.

Bouchardon's room rejoices in another Psyctie, by Augustin Pajou (1730 — 1809), which represents her inconsolable at the flight of the fickle god, and given up to the vengeance of Venus. That there may be no mistake as to the name and meaning of his statue, he has written the following mischievous line round the pedestal :


(i


Psyche lost Love in wishing to know him."


This inscription, beneath the nude figure of a clumsy and ungraceful courtesan, who is neither the Phryne of Praxiteles nor the Venus of Gnidus, reminds us of that painter of Ub^da, whom Cer- vantes makes fun of, who worked at random, saiga to que saliere, and wrote beneath the chance pro- duction of his brush, **This is a cock," that it might not be taken for a fox. Pajou atoned for this, however, in a fine, life-like, and speaking portrait of Buffon ; he was always successful with sculptured


FRENCH SCULPTURE, 325

likenesses, those of women especially, and knew how to make them pretty and pleasing in spite of the shapeless head-dresses to which they were con- demned by fashion. Two other nude figures, by Chretien All^grain (1705 — 179S), called Venus and Diana at the Batky are scarcely worthy of even a passing notice.

The room named after Houdon is not reserved to him alone, but to all those who may be con- sidered his contemporaries ; for, with the exception of one, the sculptors whose works it contains died after the beginning of the present century. Jean- Baptiste Pigalle (17 14 — 1785) lived and died last cen- tury ; he has only one work in the Louvre, a bust- portrait of Maurice of Saxony in lias limestone. This artist preferred truth to beauty ; he was a most persevering worker, as prolific as he was skilful, and, good and life-like as is this one likeness, it is not enough to represent such a man in the museum of France. We must seek him rather in the Library of the Institute, where we find his strange statue of Voltaire, whom he insisted upon representing nude, although he was old and emaciated ; in one of the chapels of Notre Dame, where we find the Tomb of Marshal Harcourt, which he composed in accord- ance with a dream of the hero's widow, and last, not least, in the Protestant church of St. Thomas, at


32G FRENCH SCULPTURE.

Strasburg, which contains the celebrated Monument to Marshal Saxe, executed in marble by Pigalle, after the designs of his friend Charles Nicolas Cochia Death opens a grave at the feet of the hero of Fontenoy, and weeping France strives to retain him.

We will now name the other sculptors of the same room, that is, of the same age, as Pigalle, according to the date of their birth.

By Jean Antoine Houdon (1741 — 1828), to whom we owe the Flayed Man so well known in schools of art, we have a bronze Diana^ whom, but for the crescent and the bow, we should scarcely take for the chaste goddess of Ephesus, for she is represented entirely nude, without veil of any kind. It is a fine study in a pure style, I own, although somewhat heavy for the nimble huntress, but it is spoiled by the stiff action and strained attitude. There is far more disinvoltura, grace, and charm in the marble group of Cupid and Psyche c^i^^xn^ butterflies, and in Psyche with tite Lampy Psyche punished for her curiosity, and weeping for her lost happiness. Can this difference of style be accounted for by the difference of material ? Is metal less subservient to the will of the artist than marble ? This question is answered on the spot by Houdon himself, for the bronze bust of Jean Jacques Rousseau, wearing the narrow fillet of the


FRENCH SCULPTURE.


conqueror in the Olympic games, is placed near that in marble of the Abb^ Aubert, and I do not think that this portrait of the author of EmiU is



Fig. 60. — Voltaire by Houdon


inferior in beauty of workmanship and truth to that of the La Fontaine of children.

Houdon is however, better represented in the


328 FRENCH SCULPTURE,

Theatre Fran^ais than in his own room in the Louvre. The bust of Molifere, in the lobby, and the statue of Voltaire seated, in the vestibule, are excellent and superior works, which will bear com- parison with any of those by his contemporaries. In them Houdon has showed how the ideal may be combined with the real, the quickening spirit with the body it animates. He has in every case given his models expression ; an expression as keen as that of the portraits of Titian and Rembrandt. I like to think that the statue of Washington, made by Houdon. for Philadelphia, is equally worthy of the virtuous and illustrious founder of American independence, of the greatest public man of modem times, on whom Byron pronounces a eulogium at the end of his ** Ode to Napoleon :"

    • Where may the wearied eye repose,

When gazing on the great ; Where neither guilty glory glows.

Nor despicable state ? Yes — one — the first — the last — the best, The Cincinnatus of the West,

Whom envy dared not hate. Bequeath the name of Washington, To make man blush there was but one."*


  • On the new monument to Washington, at Philadelphia, the

Americans have inscribed :

    • The first in war,

The first in peace, And the first in the hearts of his fellow-citizens."


FRENCH SCULPTURE. 329

By P. L. Roland (1746 — 1819) we have a Homer in rhapsody, accompanying himself on his lyre. ByAntoine Denis Chaudet (1765 — 1810) a Cupid seizing a butterfly, the symbol of the soul, and the group of the Shepherd Phorbas carrying away the young CEdipuSy which is considered the best of his works, and is certainly one of the best of the time of Louis David. By Adrien Gois (1765 — 1823) an alabaster bust of Corinna, Is this the ancient rival of Pindarus, or the heroine of Madame de Stael's romance (Corinne) } By Joseph Bosio (1790 — 1845) an Aristteus, not as a hero, but as the god of bees, and two youthful figures, male and female, which would make a good pair : one is Hyacinthus, the beloved child of Apollo, by whom he was struck on the head with a quoit, in consequence of the jealousy of Zephyrus ; the other is the nymph Salmacis, dying of love for the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, with whom she was united in one body (Hermaphrodite).

It is a pity that a bust of the Virgin Mary, with a sanctimonious and imbecile expression, has been placed near these fine works. It shows that its author, Bosio, knew no better how to express religious feeling in sculpture than in painting. He was foolish enough to attempt the sacred style in his old age, and, with still greater foolishness, he


330 FRENCH SCULPTURE.

took the public into his confidence. By Charles Dupaty (1775 — 1825) we have a Byblis changed into a fountaia By P. L. Roman (1792 — 1835) a group of Nisus and Euryalus dying together, as related in the sixth canto of the iEneid. By J. P. Cortot (1787 — 1843) another group, less tragic, and better suited to the requirements of sculpture, of Daphnis and Chloe learning to play the double pipe, a piece as pretty and pleasing as the tale of Longus in the translation of Amyot.

We have now passed through the Louvre and are at the entrance to the Luxembourg. In this museum we find none but the works of contem- porary painters and sculptors, and for the reason given in a former work, we shall abstain from all criticism on those groups of statuary. We will merely mention the names and works of those who have been worthy to pass through this museum of living artists, to be reckoned after their death amongst our national glories. For greater impartiality we will arrange them in alphabetical order :

A Jagua devouring a Hare, by M. Antoine Louis Barye (1795 — . . . .)» a bronze group cast in one mould, the wax being broken ; a process fallen into disuse since the Renaissance. Amongst the other state collections there are more works by M. Barye, such as the four figures of PeacCy War,


FRENCH SCULPTUBE. 331

Force, and Order, which adorn the pavilion of the new Louvre ; and the Lion devouring a Boa, in the Tuileries Garden. Every one knows how justly famous is M. Barye for his representations of animals. A Cupid clipping his wings, by M. Jean

Marie Bonnassieux (1810 — ). Truth, by M.

Pierre Jules Cavelier (1814), to whom we are also indebted for the statue of Blaise Pascal, on the ground floor of the tower of St, Jacques, and the beautiful Sleeping Penelope, for which the Due de Luynes had a special pavilion constructed in his Chdteau de Dampierre, A Young Hunter playing with his Dog, by M. Antoine Laurent Dantan (1798). Psyche deserted by Cupid, by M. Antoine Desboeufs (1793). Innocence, by M. Louis Desprez (1799). Cupid tormenting a Soul, symbolised by a Butterfly, by M. Augustin Alexandre Dumont (1801) ; who is also the author of the fine Genius of Liberty, on the Column of July. A Young Fisher Dancing the Tarantella, by Frangois Joseph Duret (1804-), who has since produced the companion groups of the Young Neapolitan Dancer, and the Improvisatore at the Vintage. A Wounded Dog, by M. Emmanuel Fr^miet (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 Gatteaux (1788-), who


332 FRENCH SCULPTURE.

was more celebrated and successful as an engraver of medals. Mutius Sc(Bvola, by M. Charles Theodore Gruy^re. The Guardian Angel leading a Repentant Sinner to God, by M. Jean Aristide Husson (1803-). A Naiady by M. Georges Jacquot (1794-). The Prayer^ and Modesty^ by M. L6on 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. Aim6 Millet (1816-) ; for which his Bacchant o{^<Q Universal Exhibition, 1855, would be a good companion statue. A Young Hunter Wounded 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 — 18 10) ; a Son of Niobe, a Psyche, an Atalanta, by. the Genevese James Pradier (1794 — 1852), who is also the author of the Fontaine MolUre 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 VEtoile, called the Departure, or the Marseillaise, We regret not meeting with a single work in the


FIIENCH SCVLPTVRE.


833


Luxembourg by the two Rameys, father and son ; or by Foyatier, author of the celebrated Sparlacus of the Tuileries , by Charles Simart , Dantan the younger, &c. But more inexplicable still is the


f


iBr'^sp^^


t

Ik


1



i


Fig. 6l.— The Marseillaise, by F. Rude.


absence of Pierre jean David, cilled David of Angers 11789 — 1856). The author of the pediment of the Pantheon, of the monument Aux grands


334 FRENCH SCULPTUSE.

kmnmes la Patrie Reconnaissante, of the statue of Pkilopcemen in the Tuileries, of Condi at Versailles, of Corneille at Rouen, of La Fayette at Washington, of A rmand Carrel at St. Mand^, 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



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- guiire, Gumery, Aim^ 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.


INDEX OF SCULPTORS AND SCULPTURES.


PAGE

Abtdos (Sepulchres of) . . . . . . • 36

Achilles (Statue of) 98, 99, 100, loi, 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

MginsL (Marbles of ) . . 81, 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) . . . . - 3^S

Alfieri (Tomb of) 136

Algardi ......... 227, 315

Alhambra (Lions of the) 238


INDEX.


AUegrain (Chretien).

"Altar of the Twelve Gods "

'* Amazon attacked by a lioness'

Amazons

Amenophis (Image of)

Amenti (Assessors of

Ammanato

Ammon Ra (Figure of)

Amphicrates .

Amset (Head of)

Amten (Tomb of)

Andrea of Pisa

Andre (Monmnent to)

Aneka (Figure of)

Anguier (Fran9ois)

(Michel) .

Anochus (Statue of) Anthermus AntinoUs (Statue of) Apelles .

Aphrodite (Statue of] ApoUino (The) Apollodorus . Apollo and the Swan

Belvedere . . 95

. (The bronze)

Citharoedus

descending to Thetis

(The Didymaean)

Epicurius

(The Lycian)

Pamopos

(The Pythian)

of Rhodes

Sauroctonos

(Statues of)

ApoUonius

"Arcdel'EtoUe'MThe) Argenti . ,


13O1


131.


94»


77,


337

PAGE

123

258, 260

137 26

36,40 226

30 90

36

9,40

202

274

30

307, 308, 309

307, 308, 309, 310

79 . 75 184, 185, 191, 192, 196

. 122 104, 122

13I1 132, 133 . 130

• 145 138, 139, 140, I4i» 230

. 140

• 148 . 317

• 79 . 151

107, 108

. 168 107, 188, 189, 140, 235

. 112

. 107 107, 211, 262, 294, 323

. 157

. 332 ♦ . 237 Z


338 INDEX.

PAGE

"Ariadne on the Panther" .... 254,255,256

(Statue of) 332

Aristseus . . . . . • . . . 117

(Statue of) 329

Aristides (Statue of ) . . 148

Aristocles ......... 79

Aristomedon ......... 78

Assyria (Bas-reliefs of) . . . 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 270

Athene (Statue of) 77

Athenodorus ......... 142

Athens (Terra-cottas of) . . . . . . •43

" Atlas sustaining a celestial globe " . . . . .148

Atum (Figure of) ........ 30

Aubert (Bust of )..►... - . 327

Augustus (Statue of) 184, 187

Auxesia (Figure of) 86

"Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante " (Bas-relief)

233» 234 "Awaking" (The) 299

Bacchante (A) 332

Bacchus (The Drunken) . . . . . .212, 223

(The Indian,- or Bearded) . . . . . .110

(Statue of) 110,156,205

Baerz (Jacques de) . . . . . . . . 267

Balbiani (Valentine, Tomb of ) . . . . . . 303

Balbus (Statues of ) . . . • . . . . .186

Bartholomew (Saint, Statue of) 208

Bartolini. • 237

Barye (Antoine Louis) 330, 331

Basilicata (Vases of the) .'66

Bas-reliefs by Anselm . ' 202

" Battle of Assur-Akh-Bal " (Bas-relief) . . . .56

    • of the Centaurs and Lapithae " . . . . . 151

" of the Greeks and Amazons *' . . . . •15*

Becerra (Jasper) 240, 242, 245

Begas' . 256, 261

Bernini (Lorenzo> . . . 100, 129, 226, 227, 228, 261, 286 Berruguete (Alonzo) . . . . . 240, 241, 242, 245


INDEX. 339

PAGE

Berulle (Tomb of) 307

Birague (Ren^, 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) ........ 289

"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, 286, 292, 293, 295» 306, 311, 312, 315.

Bupalus 75

Butler (Tomb of ) 277

    • Byblis changed into a fountain" ..... 330

CiESAR (Bust of) 183

(Statue of) 184, 186

Calamis .......... 140

Cafiieri (Jacques) . . . . . . . .321

Caligula (Bust of ) . . . . . . . .182

(Statue of) 189

Callicrates 158, 168, 271

Callo . . 81, 87

Calvary of Spires ......... 250

of St. Roch 308

Camden (Tomb of) ........ 275

Canachus ... ..... 79


340 INDEX.

PACK

Canino (Vases of) .••.... 43> 66

Cano (Alonzo) 245, 247, 248

"Canopi" 35» 36, 37

Canova (Antonio) 97, 148, 220, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234,

236, 237> 255, 261, 280, 282, 323. "CapitolineTablete" (The) . . . ' . . -33 Captives (The, by M. Angelo) . . . 218, 221, 293, 295

Caracalla (Bust of) 193

Carpeaux 334

Carrel (Armand, Statue of) 334

Caryatid (A) 156

Caryatides (by Puget) ' • . . . . . • 3^5

Casaubon (Tomb of) . ...... 277

Castor and Pollux (Statues of ) . . . . . .184

Cavelier (Pierre Jules) . . . . . . .331

Cecrops (Torso of) 176

Cellini (Benvenuto) 225, 229, 292

Centaur (A) 117

Cephisodotus ......... 133

Cervetri (Vases of) 43, 65

Caere (Antiquities of) . . . . . . 43, 65

Chabot (Statue of) 306

Chambres (Helen de, Tomb of) . . . . .291

Chantry .......... 280

Charles V. (Triumphs of, Bas-relief) ..... 241

the Bold (Tomb of) 244, 265

IX. (Bust of) 305

Chares .......... 112

Charon (Statue of ) . . . . . . . . 322

Chastity (Statue of ) 114

Chatham (Tomb of ) 275

Chaucer (Tomb of ) . . . . . . . . 277

Chaudet (Antoine Denis) ....... 329

Chephrem (Statue of) 80

" Chevaux de Marly or Ecuyers " 318

Child's Bust by Pilon 268

    • Chimaera " (The) 38, 52, 63, 149

Chimney-piece by Glosencamp 268

Chons (Figure of) 30


INDEX. 341

PAGE

" Christ and the Twelve Apostles " .... 197,262

    • beneath the Shroud " 227,280

Christ by Bouchardon .....•, 323

by Fa Presto 227

byM. Angelo 216

on the Cross 308

Chrysothemus ......... 78

" Circumcision " (The) 291

Citium (Antiquities of) 60, 61

Claux de Vousonne . . . . . . . . 267

Clement XIII. (Tomb of) 239

XIV. (Tomb of) 229

Cleomenes . , . . . . , ' , 130, 133

Cleosthenes (Statue of) 79

Cleves (Comeille Van) 322

Colbert (Bust of) 308

(Tomb of) ....... , 316

CoUeoni (Statue of ) . . . . . . . 206, 207

Colomb (Michault) 290, 292, 296, 306

Colomban (Andr^) 290

Colossi of Khorsabad 47> 50, 52

Conmiines (Tomb of) . . . . . . .291

    • Conclamatio" (Bas-relief) 194

Cond^ (Statue of) . . . • 334

(Tomb of) 307

Congreve (Tomb of) 276

    • Consolatrice " (La) ....... 230

Constance

Constantine (Compound Statue of) 198

Constant

Corinna (Bust of) 329

Comeille (Statue of) 324

Comeilles (Busts of the) . . . . . . .321

Cornelius ......... 253

Comewall (Captain, Tomb of) 273

Corradini (Antonio) ........ 228

Cortot(J.) 330

Courtenvaux (Tomb of )...... . 308

Cosmo (Saint, Statue of ) 214


342 INDEX.

PACE

Coudray (Fran9ois) ........ 322

Cousin (Jean) 301, 302, 306

Coustou (Nicolas) 318, 319, 321

(Guillaume) 318, 319

"Cow of Myron" .80

Coysevox (Antoine) . . . . . . 316, 317, 321

Crauk 324

Croix (Hennequin de la) . . . . . . . 290

Cuneiform Inscriptions ....... 60

    • Cupid and Psyche " 326

clipping his wings ....... 331

(A sleeping) 213

seizing a Butterfly ....... 329

tormenting a soul ....... 331

(A Victorious) ........ 324

Cupids .......... no

Cypselus (Carved Chest of) 77

Cyprus (Terra-cottas of) 43

Dameas 77

Damia (Figure of ) . . . . . . . ' . 86

Damian (Saint, Statue of ) 214

Damoxenus and Creugas" 229

Dannecker ......... 254

Dantan (Antoine Laurent) ....... 333

"Daoiz and Velarde" 247

" Daphnis and Chloe " 330

David (by Francheville) 309

(by M. Angelo) 213

(by Donatello) . . 203

(Louis) ......... 329

Pierre Jean . . . . . . . .333

Davy (Tomb of) 275

•* Day" (by M. Angelo) 214

Decker (Hans) 250

"Dsedali" 74

Daedalus 72, 74, 76, 81, 87, 201

'* Daedalus and Icarus" 229

De la Croix (Hennequin) ....... 290


INDEX. 343

PAGE

Delos (Terra-cottas of) . . . . . . • ^43

Delia Robbia (Luca) 202, 204, 205

Demigiano ......... 291

Demosthenes (Statue of ) 119

Denis (St., Gate of) 308

"Departure" (The, Bas-relief) 332

    • Deposition from the Cross " 297

Desboeufs (Antoine) 331

" Descent from the Cross " 251

Desjardins ........ 321, 322

De Thou (Tomb of ) . . 308, 309

  • • Diana at the Bath 325

of Ephesus . . . . . . . 90, 97

Huntress ... 94, 95, 97, loi, 109, 137, 140

of Gabii 109

with the Stag . . . . . , 94^ 95

Statue of 127, 296, 326

Dipaenus. ..... ... 77> 78

" Discobolus " (The) 118

"Dispute of Poseidon and Pallas" .... 168,174

Djizeh (Sculptures of )..... . 5, 10

Dogs (Bronze) . . . . . . , . , 296

Domitian (Statue of) . . . . . . . 192

Domitius Corbulo (Statue of) 192

Donatello . . ... 202, 203, 204, 214, 224

Dontas 78

Doryclidas . . . . . , . . .78

" Doryphorae " (The) 98

Drake (Fred) 255, 258, 261

Drogues (Jehan de) 268

Dryden (Tomb of) 277

Dubois (Paul) 334

Dumont (Alexander) . . . . . . .331

(£dm^) 322

Dupaty (Charles) . . . . . . . 330, 332

Dupre 237

Duret (Fran9ois Pierre) 331

Diirer (Albert) . . . . . . ,251, 252

(Statue of) 257


344 INDEX

PAGE

"Early Dawn" (by M. Angdo) 214

Egypt (Black Lions of) .... . .184

(Pyramids of) ......,• 9

"Elfin Dance" (The) 203

Elizabeth (Tomb of) 273

Endceos . , . . . . . . • • 90

Ensahor (Statue of) 28

" Entrance of Alexander into Babylon " ' .... 262

Epeus .......... 122

Epicurius (Statue of) 121

Erectheum (Portico of the) . • . . . • '54

" Erection of a Colossal Bull " (Bas-relief) .... 56

Erwin of Steinbach 249

Euchir .......... 78

Eutelidas 78

Evangelists (Statues of the) . . ■ . . . 206, 297

    • Evening" (By M. Angelo) 214

Falconnet (Etienne) 321

Falqui^re 334

Fa Presto (Luca) 227

Faun's Head (by M. Angelo) 210,211

" Faun with the Child " 114

(The Dancing) . . . . . . 143, 144, 294

(The Drunken) ........ 144

~ (The Musical) 132, 133, 140

Fauns (Two dancing) - 114

Faustina (Statue of) 193

Fenelon (Bust of) 316

Ferdinand of Arragon (Tomb of) ... . 243, 244

Fiers 269

"Fishinanet" 280

Flaxman ......... 280

" Flayed Man " (The) 326

Flora (The Famese) . . . . . . 112,145,146

Florence (Ba!ptistery of) ...... . 203

" Fontaine des Innocents " 299, 300

de Moli^re ........ 332

    • de la Rue de Crenelle" ...... 323


INDEX. 345

PAGE

"Force" 308, 331

Foyatier 333

Fra Barduccio Cherichini (Statue of ) . . . . 204

    • France " (Bas-relief) 332

Francheville (Pierre) 309

Fran9ois de Bretagne (Tomb of) 290

Fremier (Emmanuel) 331

Frederick the Great (Monument to) .- . . . .257

William III. (Statue of ) 258

Friendship " (Statue of ) 293


((


" Ganymede and the Eagle " 14S

Garrick (Tomb of) 278

Gatteaux (Nicolas Marie) . . . . . . -331

Gay (Tomb of) 277

Geefs 269

Genevieve (Saint, Tomb of ) . . . ' . . . 305

" Genius of Eternal Repose " 113

" Genius of Liberty " ....... 331

George (Saint, Statue of) 306

Geta (Statue of )....... . 193

Ghiberti (Lorenzo) 202, 203, 267

Giam-Bologna . . . . . . 293, 294, 309

Gines (Juan) ......... 247

Girardon (Fran9ois) 105, 112, 317

Giovanni of Pisa ........ 202

Gladiator (The Dying) 136

(The Fighting) .... 98, loo^ loi, 117, 140

Glaucias .......... 81

Glaucus . . . . . . . . . •75

Glosencamp (Hermann) 268, 269

Glycon . . . 145

Gnidus (Venus of) ....... 105, 324

Goethe and Schiller (Statues of) . . . . 259, 260

Gois (Adrian) 329

Goldsmith (Tomb of) 277

Goujon (Jean) .... 267, 296, 297, 299, 300, 301, 307 " Graces " (The Three) , . . . 79, 120, 252; 262 Gray (Tomb of) 276


346 INDEX.

PACK

Gruyere (Charles) 332

  • ' Guardian Angel leading a Repentant Sinner to God " . 332

Guillain (Simon) 307, 309

Guillaime ......... 334

Gunnery 334

Gutenberg (Statue of ) . . . . . . . 262

Guyot de Beaugrant ....... 269

Hadrian (Statue of) 184

Handel (Tomb of) 279

Hapi(Headof) 36

Harcourt (Tomb of). ....... 325

" Harmodius and Aristogiton " . . . . • 90

Harpocrates (Statue of ) . . . . . . 137

Harpy Tomb (The) . 149

Hathor (Figure of) 29, 30

Hector (Obsequies of, Bas-relief) ..... 122

Hecuba (Statue of ) . . . . . . . . 137

Hegias or Hegesias ........ 90

Henri II. (Bust of) ' . . 297, 305

III. (Bust of) 305

IV. (Bust of) .309

IV. (Statue of ) 309

Henry VII. (Tomb of) 273, 280

Heracles (Statue of ) 77

    • Heracles crowned by Glory " . . . . . . 320

(The Famese) 93, 145, 146

(Head of) 306, 307

in Repose . 312

on the Pile 320

vanquished by Love . - . . ... 322

(Various statues of ) .... 84,110,213,321

Hermabicippus (A) . • 120

Hermaphrodite (The Borghese) 1 14

"Hermes" 119, 120

Hippomachi of Lysippus 1 11

    • Homer in rhapsody " 329

Horus (Statue of) 2S, 30

Houdon (Jean Antoine) . . . 325, 326, 327, 328, 332


INDEX,


347


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) .

    • Jaguar 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 Mame " Juno of Argos (Statue of)

of the Capitol (Statue of) .

of Samos

(Statue of ) . . .


PAGE

329 148


158, 168, 271 . 62

i7S» 176 • 331

33 1 » 332 . 173 . 30 . 252


332 330

332

239 261

256

117


. 321 . 332

203, 204 244, 266, 268 . 277

242, 266

. 268

. 203

. 189

113, 217, 218

216, 217

. 318 . 97

r 137 160, 220

. 294


348 INDEX.

PACK

Jupiter Olympins (Statue of) 77, 97, iii, 158, 159, 160, 220

Panhellenios (Statue of) 82, 83

Serapis (Statue of) 148

Juste (Jean) 291

Justice (Statue of) 308

Kaeschmann (Joseph) 256

Kalah Sheigat (Obelisk of ) 59

(Statue found at) . . . . . -59

Kaiaml^ (Relics from) 50

Kamak (Hypostile room at) ...... 29

(Temple of) 5,11,27

Kebsnif (Head of) 36, 37

Kertch (Palace and Tomb of) 43

Khoisabad (Colossi of) 47, 50, 52

(Palace of) ....... 47, 48

Kneller (Tomb of) 275

" Knife Grinder " (The) 135, 136

Kojrunjik (Palace of) 50

Krafft (Adam) 250

Krater (The Silver, of Delphi) 75

La Fayette (Statue of ) . . . .* . . . 334

"Laocoon" (The) . . loi, 127, 140, 141, 147, 181, 235, 313

"LaLotta" 133

Laphaes 78

'* Latona and her Children " (Parthenon) . . . .176

Lebrija (High Altar of) 246

Lebrun (Bust of) 317

'*Leda and the Swan" 321

Legendre (Roberte, Tomb of) 29

Lemaire (Philippe Henri) 332

Lemonturier ( Antoine) . . . . . . . 268

Leonardo (Alessandro) . . . . - . 206

Leochares ......... 152

" Life of the Virgin " (Bas-relief ) 290

Livia (Statue of) ........ 189

Ligonier (Lord, Tomb of) 274

Lion devouring a Boar " ...... 330


(<


INDEX.


349


PAGE


    • Lo Zuccone "...

Longueville (Henri, Monument to) Lorenzo de Medici (Mausoleum of) Louisa of Russia (Tomb of)

(Statue of)

Louis XII. (Tomb of) (Statue of)


XIII. (Statue of)

XIV. (Statue of)

XV. (Statue of)

Luccardi

Lucius Verus (Bust of)

Luther (Statue of) .

Lydian Tomb (The) .

Lysippus.


204 . 308

214 . 256 . 256 . 291 . 291

. 307

242, 307. 316, 319

. 319

• 237 . 192

• 257 64

no, III, 119, 120, 151, 259


Macaulay (Tomb of) 277

Madeleine de Savoie Tende (Tomb of) .... 309

    • Madonna adoring her dead Son " . . . . . 260

of Bruges ....... 222, 224

della Piet^L 215

holding the Infant Jesus 205, 240

-; — of Naples ........ 262

    • Magdalene " (Repentant) .... 236, 255, 280

Magny (Tomb of) ........ 306

Manetho (Tables of) . 9

Mansfield (Tomb of) 274

" Mano de la teta " 240

Marcus Aureliiis (Equestrian Statue of) . . . . 1S4

(Statue of) 186, 188, 189

Maria Christina (Tomb of) . . . .231, 232, 282

Leczinska (Statue of) . . . . . '319

Marius (Trophies of) 184

Mark (Saint, Statue of) 203

Marochetti (Baron) 282

Marriage of the Virgin (Bas-relief) 291

Mars (Statue of) 136, 261

Marsyas (Statue of ) . . . . . . . .117

(The Bound) . 118


350 INDEX.

PAGE

Mary of Burgundy (Tomb of ) . • 244, 265, 266

Stuart (Tomb of ) 273

(The Virgin, Statue of) 3^3

wife of WiUiam III. (Tomb of) 273

Mason (Tomb of) 277

MatUdia (Bust of ) '93

" Massacre of the Innocents " . ... . . 247,291

Maurice of Saxony (Bust of) $25

Mausolus (Mausoleum of) . • • • • .152

Maximilian (Statue of ) 257

Mazarin (Tomb of) 3^^

Medici (Tombs of the) 214,280

Medon 7^

Melas 75

Mdeagcr (Statue of ) H5

Memnon (Statue of ) 26

Memphis (Sepulchres of) 3^

Menephtah (Statue of) 27

Mentichetes (Sepulchral Room of ) 4©

" Mercury attaching the wings to his heels " . . .321

carrying off Hebe 295

(The Flying) ........ 295

and Psyche ^95

of Rome ^4©

(The Seated) ^44

(Statue of ) . . . . 1 10, 142, 262, 294, 332

" Metrodorus and Epicurius " (Statues of ) . . . .121

Meyt (Conrad) 290

Micciades .....•••• 75 Michael Angelo {See Buonarotti)

Mignard (Bust of ) 3^7

MiUet (Anne) 332, 334

MUo (Statue of) 77

of Crotona (Statue of) ... • 3i3> 3I4» 324

MUtiades (Statue of ) "^

MUton (Tomb of ) . . • .', * ' ' ^77, 278 "Minervaafter the Judgment of Paris" . . . -331

of Athens 90, 97, 160, 220

Hellotis '°7


INDEX.

Minerva (The Lemnian)

Polias

Promachos

(The Warrior) .

with the Necklace

(Various Statues of)

Modesty (Statue of)

Moitte .

Moliere (Bust of)

Montanes (Jean Martinez)

Montelupo (Raffaello da)

Montmorency (Tomb of)

Montorsoli

    • Monument of the Pont au Change

Monuments of Xanthus

Moses (Statue of ) . . 212,

Mouth (Figure of )

Munt (Figure of)

Muses (The Nine)

Mutius Scaevola (Statue of)

Myron .

Naiad (A)

Naucydes

Neith (Figure of)

Nemesis (Statue of)

" Neptune calming the Waves "

(The Colossal, by Ammanato)

(Torso of)

" Nereides " .

Nero (Statue of)

Nesa (Statue of)

Nesrok (Statue of)

Newton (Tomb of)

Nicolas of Pisa

Nightingale (Tomb of)

" Night " (By M. Angelo)

Nike Apteros (Fragments of, Parthenon)

(Temple of ) .


351

PAGE

155

97, i55» 157 158

55, 158, 159 107

84, 8s, 97, 137, 176

227, 332

332 328

245 2x4

309 214

307

150, 151 218, 219, 220, 223, 239

. 30

• 30 X, 121, 262

• 332 78, 80

• 332 . 1x8

30, 137 III

. 322

. 226

. 176

122, 298

190, 192

9,27

. 58

275, 276

79, 202, 250

281

214

176

155


352 INDEX.

PAGB

Nile (Statue of the) 113

Niobe and her Children .... 125, 126, 127, 128

(A Son of ) . . . . . . . . 332

Nisus and Euryalus (Statues of ) . . . . . . 330

Nola (Vases of) 439 66

'* Nuestra Seiiora de la Solidad " 242

Num (Figure of) ........ 30

Nuremberg (Fountain of ) . . . . . . 250

Nupte (Figure of) ........ 30

" Nymph of Fontainebleau " (The) . . 225,226,292

    • Nymphs of the Seine " 298, 299

Cannes (Temple of) 49

Olivieri (Pietro Paolo) 293

Onatas . . . 81, 87

Orpheus (Statue of ) . . . . . . 309

    • Orator " (The) 63

Orcagna (Andrea) ........ 202

" Order »' (Statue of) 331

Osiris (Figure of ) . . . . . . . -30

(Statuette of) 30

Otho (Bust of) 182

Overbeck 253

Pasht (Figure of) 30

Pajou (Augustin) ........ 324

Palissy (Bernard) ... ^ ... . 204

Palladio 180

Pallas of Velletri 106

Pantheon (Pediment of the) 333

Paoli (Pisquale, Tomb of) 274

Papias 117

Parcae (Statues of the) I73> I74» 175

Parthenon (Cella of the) .... 162,163170,178

(Frieze of the) .... 162, 163, 164, 167, 170

(Metopes of the) 162,165,166,167,170,178

(Pediments of the) 162, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 174, 176, 178

(Various Sculptures of the) 151, 153, 154, 157, 159, 161, 170,

172, 178, 179, 270.


INDEX.


353


of)


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

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, iii,

152, 155. 157, 158, 159, 162, 167, 168, I

285* 297, 315, 317. Philibert le Beau (Tomb of) Philippe de Chabot (Mausoleum of) Philip 4h€ Handsome (Tomb of)

the Hardy (Tomb of)

Philopoemen (Statue of) .

Phiteus ....

Phre (Figure of)

Phtah (Figure of) .

Pierre de Brez^ (Tomb of)

Pierre Jacques .

Pigalle (Jean Baptiste)

Pilon (Germain)

Pisa (Pulpits of)

Pius VI. (Tomb of) .

Plautilla (Bust of) .

    • Pluto carrying away Proserpine

Plutus (Statue of) .

Pomona (Statue of) ,

Polycles .

Polycletus


PACE

• 331 . 250

. 280

• 330 . 241

. 28

214

75 . 334 . 172 229, 230 . 312 . 225

. 313 . 321

• 332 114, 124, 130, 151,

77, 179, 180, 271,

. 290

. 302

. 243, 244

244, 266, 267

• 334


301 !


. 152

. 30 . 30 . 301, 302 . 306 321, 325, 326 302, 303, 305, 321 . 202 . 229

. 193

• 317 '. 322

. 332

. 114

78, 80, 98, 1 14

2 A


354


INDEX.


Polydorus

Polyhymnia (Statue of)

" Polyphemus on the Rock "

Pompey (Bust of ) .

Poniatowski (Statue of)

Pope (Tomb of)

Porta (Giacomo della)

Poucher (Tomb of) .

Pradier (James)

•* Prayer"

Praxiteles 87, 90, 93, 105, 108, 110, 126, 130,

285, 324.

    • Presiding Spirits of the Games "

" Praetorian 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 .


PAGE

142 112 322 182 262 277

145 291

332

332 133, 144, 152, 209,

122 . 194

• 309 270

. 322

28

. 324

• 331 324, 332


" Pteron " (The)

Ptolycus .

Puget 220, 286, 307, 310, 312, 313, 314, 315,

323. 334. Pupienus (Statue of)

Pythis

Ra (Figure of)

Ra-em-Ke (Statue of)

Rameses-Meiamun (Statue of)

Rameys (The two) .

Ra-Nefer (Statue of)

    • Rape of a Sabine "

Ranch (Christian)

Ravi (Jean)

Rene Birague (Tomb of)

  • • Repose in Egypt " (After A. Durer)


. 326 . 152

. 81 316, 320, 321, 322,

190, 197 152, 153

. 30

. 7,9 26

• 333 . 41

• 294 255, 256, 257, 260

. 289

• 303 . 251


INDEX.


355


PAGE


Rhaecus ....

Rhytons ....

Richelieu (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 ) .

Roubiliac

Rousseau (Jacques) .

(Bust of Jean -Jacques)

Rowe (Tomb of) Rude (Fran9ois)


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 .

Scarabseus

Schadow.

Schafra (Statue of)

Schamost (General, Statue of)

Schuffer (Sebald)

Schwanthaler .

Scopas .

Sculptors of Greece (Statues of)

Scyllis ....


his urn "


J)


202,


255,


74 66

316

260

. 321

• 329

• 330 . 66

38, 39, 40

i35» 136 321

279

322

326

277 332


249 322

322

205

9,40

114, 329

205, 206, 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, 78


356


INDEX,


PAGE


Seb (Figure of)


• • • ■


. 30


Sebald (Saint, Baptistery


of) . . .


. 250


(Saint, Tomb of)


• • • « 

4


. 250


Seguier (Bust of)


■ • • fl


• 307


Selinuntium (Temple of)


• • ■ I


. 43


Sepa (Statue of )


• • • ■


9, 27


Septimus Severus (Bust o


f) . . .


. 192


" Sermon of Saint Paul at Athens " .


• 30s


Sesurtasen (Statuette of)



. 26


Seti I. (Tomb of) .



.29


II. (Statue of) .



. 27


Seth (Figure of)



27, 30


Sethos (Statue of) .



. 27


Sevekhotep (Statue of)



26, 29


Shakespear (Tomb of)



277, 278, 280


Sheemakers



276, 278


    • Shepherd Phorbas canying away the youn


g Oedipus " . 329


Sheridan (Tomb of) .


• • • « 


. 277, 278


  • * Siege of a Town " (B^-relief )


. . ; 56


Siena (Pulpits of) .


• • ■ I


. 202


Sigean Inscription (The)


• • • <


. 155


    • Silenus with the young


Bacchus " .


. 114


Simart (Charles)


• • • <


. ■• 333


Simmias .


• • • 1


. 90


Siumutf (Head of)


• • • I


36,37


•* Sleeping Penelope " (The)


• 331


Sluter (Claux) .



. 267


Smilis of i^gina



. 81


Socrates (Statue of) .



. 120


Sola (Antonio)



... 247


Sopers .



. 269


Sophroniscus .



. IS9


Sphinx .



. s, 27, 41, 45, 53


Spartacus (Statue of)



• 333


Spenser (Tomb of) .



. 277


Spy (The) .



  • 135, 136


Stanhope (Tomb of)'



. 274


"Statuaelconicae" .



. -^18, 182, 187


• Stelae "



5, 32, 34, 35


INDEX. 357

PAGB

Strasbourg (Cathedral of) 244

Strazzi .......... 237

•* Struggle between Saint George and the- Dragon " . . 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) 30f 38

Tauriscus .... i ... . 147

Telecles .......... 74

Terpsichore (Statue of) 255

Teti (Statue of ) 28

Texier (Jean) ......... 291

Thalia (Statue of) 121

Thebes (Sepulchres of) . . . . . . ii» 36

Theocles 78

Theodoras 74» 7Sf 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) . 82, 237, 261, 262, 263

Thoth (Figure of) 30

"Tiber "(The) 113

Tiberius (Statue of) . . 188

Timosithnge (Statue of) 79

Timotheus . . . . . . . . . 152

Tiridates 191

    • Titan struck by thunder "....,. 322

Titus (Statue of) 190

Tomb by Puget 315

    • Toro Famese" (The) .... 146,149,181,314

Torregiano ..... 224, 239, 240, 273, 280 Torso (The Belvedere) 143, 175


358


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)


Euploea .

Genetrix .

of Knidus

leaving the Bath

a Libertin

of Medici

of Melos .

of Praxiteles

of Troas .

Victrix .

Venuses (Two Marine)


92


93» 94





PAGE


. 241





305, 306

. 303 . 298

. 186





. 251 308, 331





. 227





. 28





. 308





. 112





. 227





. 322





. 321

. 6i





. 303, 304 . 226





64, 65





. 237





. 97





. 122





• 325





. 144





. 144 . 148





. 105





. 105





. 105




\ 80,


97, 105, 324

136, 138

. 105


93, 128, 129, 130, 140, 145


, 95» 97, loi, 104, 129, 140


. 130


. 105



» 1



92, 104, 105


105


INDEX.


359


Verrocchio (Andrea).

Vesta ....

" Vetri Antichi " .

    • Victories "(Six marble) .

Victory (A, by M. Angelo)

"Victory" (A Winged) .

Victorious Alexander (Statue of)

Vigami (Filippo)

Vinache (Joseph)

Vine (The Golden, of Sardis)

    • Virgin adoring the Infant Saviour "

(Bust of the) .

holding the Holy Child "

nursing the Infant Jesus "

Vischer (Peter) Visitation (The, bas-relief) Voltaire (Bust of ) .

(Statue of)

Vvdcan (Statue of) .

"War".

Warren (Eliz. Tomb of) . Washington (Statue of) Watt (Statue of)

(Tomb of)

Wellington (Equestrian Statue of)

(Statue of)

Westmacott (Sir Richard) . Wiener .... Wilberforce (Tomb of) Wilkie (Statue of) . William III. (Tomb of ) . Wolf (The Etruscan) Wolfe (General, Tomb of) "Wrestlers" (The) . Wyatt (Tomb of) .

Xanthus (Monument of) .

YoRCK (Statue of ) .


lOI,


I33»


75


34, 141, 229,


PAGE 206

68

257 218

» 173

314

239 322

75 205

329 246

214

25b

291

328

325 294

330 280 328 280

275 272

272

270, 271

269

275 271

273 186

274

235 276


150* 151 . 257


360


INDITL.


«r


" Young Fisher dancing the Tarantella "

playing with a Tortoise " .

" Young Girl frightened by a Snake " ' with the Stag


«(


Young Hunter playing with his DQg " wounded by a Snake


«(


Young Neapolitan Dancer "


•* Zephyrus carrying off the Sleeping Psyche " Zeuxis .......

" Zodiac of Denderah ' ' (The) .


PAGE

332 332 323 331 332 331


256 118

39, 40


THE END.


LONDON : PRINTBP BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS^ STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS.




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