VISIT THE FOURTH.
The visitor will now enter the museum to complete his inspection of its contents. His way lies once more to the west on entering the great hall, into the first Sculpture Gallery, or that which he will recognise as leading into the great central saloon. Here, as he pauses on the threshold of a noble room filled with splendid specimens of Greek art, he may recur to the historical points which these works illustrate. Throughout this, his last visit, he will be occupied with the examination of the works of the ancient Greeks. These works, as he will notice, are of various degrees of excellence. Already has he examined the rude labours of the Greek sculptors of Xanthus; and to-day his journey will be amid those more modern and perfect labours, performed when the talent of the Greeks was chiefly concentrated upon European ground. Although these glories of remote antiquity are here mostly in an admirable state of preservation, historians are generally lost in contradictions when they attempt to point to any particular piece of statuary as the labour of any known sculptor. The sculptor of the Venus de Medici is not known; and the Apollo Belvedere is a masterpiece, the author of which lies shrouded in the depths of the past. Rude and harsh were the early performances of the Greeks. We have histories of Greek sculptors who flourished many hundred years before our era; and of these the mythical Daedalus is the oldest and most renowned. This sculptor is reported to have flourished fourteen centuries before the Christian era. He is said to have fashioned colossal wooden statues; and Pausanias mentions his statue of Hercules in the possession of the Thebans, and his wooden Venus in the possession of the Delians. His Hercules, however, appears to have been considered his masterpiece; and Flaxman, commenting upon the antiquity of the figures of Hercules found on some coins, seems to think that we may not unreasonably conjecture that these are copies from the masterpiece of Daedalus. Other sculptors of the same name, appear to have flourished in the Achaic period of Grecian history. Indeed it is shrewdly conjectured that Daedalus derived his name from wooden statues called Daedala; and that amongst the ancient Greeks, Daedalus meant nothing more than one skilled in making Daedala. The earliest sculptures of the Greeks were fashioned of materials easily worked, as plaster, clay, and wood. Later they worked ivory, and began to understand the value of metals in statuary; and about five centuries before the Christian era, marble was used by sculptors for detached figures. In the infancy of Greek art, when sculptors were gradually acquiring the skill to fashion their creations out of the most durable material, many combinations of wood, stone, and metal were used, which would sadly shock the modern sculptor's eye;—wooden figures burnished with gold, and with painted vermilion faces, were fashioned in the age of Phidias; and it is believed by some, that this immortal sculptor helped to produce a statue of Jupiter, the face of which was of ivory and gold, and the body of gypsum and clay. Phidias may be fairly acknowledged as the first great Greek sculptor, of whose career and whose works we have indisputable accounts. He founded, and represents all the excellencies of the highest school of Greek art. The sculptors who came after him, as Lysippus the favourite of the great Alexander, paid greater regard to graces of detail and to finish; but of those sublime effects, those forms of gods in human shape which really impress the modern spectator with their almost superhuman beauty, Phidias was the creator. The sculptures known to the public as the Townley collection, are sculptures generally of a more modern date than those in the Elgin and Phigaleian Saloons. The collection has undoubtedly many specimens of the rudest eras of Greek art: but its most striking groups, to the general visitor, will be undoubtedly those finished statues and compositions which represent the ages when Greece was a great European power, and that subsequent period when the Greek sculptors plied their chisels under the patronage of Roman conquerors. In this room the visitor will once more remark, how large a proportion of these priceless relics have been gleaned from ancient sepulchres. Even as he enters the room, he may perceive on the right, the front of a tomb from Athens, carved in high relief; and on the left, the front of another tomb, also sculptured, from Delos.
The room is divided into compartments which the visitor should examine in their regular order of rotation. He will begin therefore, of course with the
FIRST DIVISION.
Before the first pilaster let the visitor notice at once a small seated statue of Cybele or Fortune, from Athens, presented to the nation by J.S. Gaskoin, Esq. Other remarkable objects to be examined before the visitor fixes his attention upon the contents of the case deposited here, are a bust of Demosthenes; a sepulchral altar or cippus, ornamented with sphinxes, etc.; and a sepulchral stêle, inscribed with the name of the son of Artemidorus, who is reclining upon a couch, and crowning himself. Over the case are deposited the end of a sarcophagus ornamented with a Bacchus reclining on a satyr; a bust of Julius Cæsar; a sepulchral cippus; and a Greek stêle. On the case are a head found near Rome, probably of Mercury: and the bust of a Muse crowned with a laurel wreath.
Having examined these objects, the visitor should occupy himself with the contents of the case. Here are some beautiful specimens of Greek art—some mere fragments, others in a wonderful state of preservation. Here are one of those funeral masks anciently used to cover the face of a corpse; the votive mask of a bearded satyr; a votive patera with bas-reliefs representing Silenus and a satyr, another with the head of a bearded Bacchus, and a panther; various heads of Hercules; a Venus attended by two Cupids; a bust of Vitellius; a head of Vulcan; a bust of Caracalla; a head of Juno; a head of the daughter of Titus, Julia; a mutilated figure, about the neck of which a scarabaeus is suspended; the torso of a satyr; a variety of fragments, here an arm holding a butterfly—there two lions' paws—there a gladiator's foot—there the fragment of a serpent. Having noticed these scraps of ancient art, the visitor may direct his attention to the lower shelf, where he will observe some beautiful busts. These include one supposed to be of Sappho; a Minerva with a Corinthian helmet found at Rome; Bacchus; Apollo; a Parian marble bust of Diana from Rome; a queenly Juno wearing the splendone; terminal busts, joined back to back, of Hercules and Omphale. The upper shelf now remains for inspection. Here are three sepulchral tablets, and the fronts of two sarcophagi. The tablet from Crete, within a wreath, contains an inscription descriptive of honour conferred by the inhabitants of Crete upon an individual named Alexander, the gift to him being a golden crown. Having noticed the gay Cupids enacting Bacchanalians upon the first front of a sarcophagus, the visitor should pass on at once to the
SECOND DIVISION.
Here, in front of the pilaster, the visitor should remark a curious square altar, with Silvanus, to whom the altar is dedicated by the farm servant of Caius Coelius Heliodorus, Callistus; and a trophy discovered on the plains of Marathon.
Grouped in this division, are some fine works. First let the visitor remark two white marble Victories discovered in the ruins of the villa of Antoninus Pius, at Monte Cagnuolo. The first Victory is kneeling upon a bull which she is about to sacrifice; and the second also is kneeling upon, and about to stab, a bull. Then a fine bust of a laughing satyr will arrest the attention of the visitor; then a colossal foot in a sandal, under the front of a sarcophagus; then the votive torso, supposed to be that of an Athelete; then a red marble swan found in a vineyard near the Villa Pinciana; then a terminal statue of a satyr; then a bust of Diogenes; then a bust, conjectured to be part of the figure of a dying Amazon; then a bust of Atys. Turning to the upper shelf of this division, the visitor should notice the front and ends of a sarcophagus deposited there. Upon these Bacchus and Ariadne are represented in a chariot, heralded by Bacchanals, and drawn by Centaurs; and in other parts Pan is being castigated by a satyr, and carried off by two Cupids aided by a satyr. Turning to the lower shelf the visitor should examine several antique busts. First there is a bust, conjectured to be that of Achilles; then there is an old Hercules; then a Bacchante; then a bust of Aratus; a female head; and a tragic mask from the lid of a sarcophagus. With the examination of this shelf the visitor closes his inspection of the second division, and should at once advance into the