Other sculptors of this period and of different nations studied at Rome, and devoted themselves to the antique with enthusiasm. One of these was Antoine Denis Chaudet (1763-1810), who was born at Paris. His talent was so early developed that he was admitted to the Royal Academy when fourteen years old, and when twenty-one he gained the first prize, and with the royal pension went to Rome, where he remained five years. He soon took good rank among artists of that time, for he was a designer and painter as well as sculptor. He adhered strictly to the antique style, and attained much purity, though he was always cold in treatment. He was made a Professor of Sculpture in the French Academy, and made valuable contributions to the "Dictionary of Fine Arts."
Chaudet's principal works in sculpture were the silver statue of Peace in the Tuileries; a statue of Cincinnatus in the Senate Chamber; a statue of Œdipus; a bas-relief of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, in the Musée Napoléon, and many busts and smaller works.
He also designed numerous medals and some of the illustrations for a fine edition of Racine, and painted a picture of Æneas and Anchises in the Burning of Troy.
Johann Heinrich Dannecker (1758-1841) was born at Stuttgart. By a statue of Milo he gained the prize of the academy founded by Duke Charles Eugene, and with the royal pension he went first to Paris and then to Rome, where he studied seven years. He then returned to Würtemberg, and was made Director of the Royal Academy, with a salary of fifteen thousand francs a year. During fifteen years Dannecker maintained a high rank in his art, but his health became so feeble that he was forced to see others excel him. One of his works has a wide reputation, and is known to many people the world over, through the generosity of Herr Bethmann of Frankfort, who admits visitors to his gallery, and from the models and pictures which have been made from it; it is the Ariadne on a Panther (Fig. 117).
Fig. 117.—Ariadne and the Panther.
By Dannecker.
Dannecker had a delicate feeling for nature; his figures were light and graceful, and his heads were noble in expression. He labored eight years upon a figure of Christ, which belongs to the Emperor of Russia; in Stuttgart a nymph pouring water on Neckar Street and two nymphs on a reservoir in the palace garden show his fine taste in architectural sculpture. Among his other works are a statue of Alexander, a monument to Count Zeppelin, a Cupid, and a Maiden lamenting a Dead Bird. Some of his works are among the very best productions of modern sculpture; his portraits are noble and true to nature; the works named here are by no means all that he did, and we should add that his efforts in religious subjects exhibit a pure sense of the beautiful, and a true conception of Christian ideas.
We come now, for the first time, to a great English sculptor. John Flaxman (1755-1826) was born in York, but while he was still an infant his father removed to London, where he kept a plaster-cast shop. The boy began to draw and even to model very early; when but five years old he kept some soft wax, with which he could take an impression from any seal or ring or coin which pleased him. He was very delicate in health, and was once thought to be dead, and was prepared for burial, when animation returned; his parents tried to gratify all his wishes, and while a child he modelled a great number of figures in wax, clay, and plaster.
By the time he was ten years old he was much stronger, and was able to use the activity which corresponded to his enthusiastic feeling and imagination. About this time he read "Don Quixote," and was so moved by the adventures of that hero that he went out early one morning armed with a toy sword and bent upon protecting some forlorn damsel; he went to Hyde Park and wandered about all day, not finding any one who was in need of his services. At night he returned home, very hungry and weary, to find his family in great alarm over his unusual absence.