For, amidst all his devotion to poetry and pantheism, Mr. Knight carried on the pursuits of connoisseurship with insatiable ardour. |Spec. of Ancient Sculp., pl. 55 and 56.| Among the choicer acquisitions which speedily followed the Diomede[?] purchased in 1785, were the mystical Bacchus—a bronze of the Macedonian period—found near Aquila in 1775; a colossal head of Minerva, found near Rome by Gavin Hamilton; and a figure of Mercury of great beauty. The last-named bronze had been found, in 1732, at Pierre-Luisit, in the Pays de Bugey and diocese of Lyons. |Ib., 33, 34.| A dry rock had sheltered the little figure from injury, so that it retained the perfection of its form, as if it had but just left the sculptor’s hand. It passed through the hands of three French owners in succession before it was sold to Mr. Knight, by the last of them, at the beginning of the Reign of Terror.
The year 1792, in which he acquired this much-prized ‘Mercury,’ is also the date of a remarkable discovery of no less than nineteen choice bronzes in one hoard, at Paramythia, in Epirus. They had, in all probability, been buried during nearly two thousand years. The story of the find is, in itself, curious. |The hoard of Bronzes found at Paramythia, in Epirus.| It shows too, in relief, the energy and perseverance which Mr. Knight brought to his work of collectorship, and in which he was so much better employed—both for himself and for his country—than in philosophising upon human progress, from the standpoint of Lucretius.
Some incident or other of the weather had disclosed appearances which led, fortuitously, to a search of the ground into which these bronzes had been cast—perhaps during the invasion of Epirus, B.C. 167—and, by the finder, they were looked upon as so much saleable metal. Bought, as old brass, by a coppersmith of Joannina, they presently caught the eye of a Greek merchant, who called to mind that he had seen similar figures shown as treasures in a museum at Moscow. He made the purchase, and sent part of it, on speculation, to St. Petersburgh. The receiver brought them to the knowledge of the Empress Catherine, who intimated that she would buy, but died before the acquisition was paid for. They were then shared, it seems, between a Polish connoisseur and a Russian dealer. One bronze was brought to London by a Greek dragoman and shown to Mr. Knight, who eagerly secured it, heard the story of the discovery, and sent an agent into Russia, who succeeded in obtaining nine or ten of the sculptures found at Paramythia. Two others were given to Mr. Knight by Lord Aberdeen, who had met with them in his travels. They were all of early Greek work. Amongst them are figures of Serapis, of Apollo Didymæus, of Jupiter, and of one of the Sons of Leda. All these have been engraved among the Specimens of Ancient Sculpture, published by the Society of Dilettanti.
Few sources of acquisition within the limits which he had laid down for himself escaped Mr. Payne Knight’s research. He kept up an active correspondence with explorers and dealers. He watched Continental sales, and explored the shops of London brokers, with like assiduity. Coins, medals, and gems, shared with bronzes, and with the original drawings of the great masters of painting, in his affectionate pursuit.
In his search for bronzes he welcomed choice and characteristic works from Egypt and from Etruria, as well as the consummate works of Greek genius. His numismatic cabinet was also comprehensive, but its Greek coins were pre-eminent. For works in marble he had so little relish that he actually persuaded himself, by degrees, that the greatest artists of antiquity rarely ‘condescended’ to touch marble. But he collected a small number of busts in that material.
For one volume of drawings by Claude, Mr. Knight gave the sum of sixteen hundred pounds.
Among his later acquisitions of sculpture in brass was the very beautiful Mars in Homeric armour. This figure was brought to England by Major Blagrave in 1813. The Bacchic Mask (No. 35, in the second volume of the Specimens) was found, in the year 1674, near Nimeguen, in a stone coffin. It was preserved by the Jesuits of Lyons, in their Collegiate Museum, until their dissolution. From them it passed into the possession of Mr. Roger Wilbraham, from whom Mr. Knight obtained it.
The Inquiry into the Symbolism of Greek Art and Mythology.
On the thorough study of the fine Collection which had been gathered from so many sources—here indicated by but a scanty sample—and on that of other choice Collections both at home and abroad, Mr. Knight based the most elaborate—perhaps the most valuable—work of his life, next to his Museum itself. The Inquiry into the Symbolism of Greek Art and Mythology bears, indeed, too many traces of the narrowness of the author’s range of thought, whenever he leaves the purely artistic criticism of which he was, despite his limitations, a master, in order to dissertate on the interdependence or on the ‘priestcraft’ of the religions of the world. But his genuine lore cannot be concealed by his flimsy philosophy. The student will gain from the Inquiry real knowledge about ancient art. He will find, indeed, not a few statements which the author himself would be the first to modify in the light of the new information of the last fifty years. But he will also find much which, in its time, proved to be suggestive and fruitful to other minds, and which prepared the way for wider and deeper studies. It may do so yet. The book is one which the student of archæology cannot afford to overlook. Whilst he may well afford a passing smile at the philosophic insight which prompted our author’s eulogies (1) upon the ‘liberal and humane spirit which still prevails among those nations whose religion is founded upon the principle of emanations;’ (2) upon the wisdom of the ‘Siamese, who shun disputes, and believe that almost all religions are good;’ |Inquiry, &c., p. 19.| (3) on the supreme fitness of the idolatries of India ‘to call forth the ideal perfections of art, by expanding and exalting the imagination of the artist;’ or (4) upon the exceptional and pre-eminent capacity of the Hindoos to become ‘the most virtuous and happy of the human race,’ but for that one solitary misfortune which cursed them with a priesthood.[[65]]
The Dissertation on Ancient Sculpture.