MARROCCHETTI.
When he saw the photograph of my model he desired to have it, and I was delighted to give it to him. He wished me to choose something of his as a remembrance, and I did not need to be urged. I had set my eyes on a most beautiful study of a lion from life in dry clay, and so I asked him for that; but as that was a thing precious to him, he asked me if I would not content myself with a cast of it in bronze instead of the clay. On my answering that I would, he called his caster, who worked for him in his own great foundry, and ordered it to be cast at once. Two days after this I received it, and keep it as the dear remembrance of an excellent friend, and as a valuable work of art.
At that time Marrocchetti had finished his great equestrian statue of Richard the Lion-hearted. It is a singular thing that Marrocchetti, in his long and glorious life, made four equestrian statues—Emanuele Filiberto, the Duke of Orleans, Carlo Alberto, and Richard the Lion-hearted. Each one of these statues bears a different stamp, both as regards composition, feeling, and mode of treatment; one would say that they were the work of four different artists. This difference of work can be reasonably explained by the diversity of the subjects and the distance of time that occurred between each work, necessarily producing notable changes in the mind and style of the artist; and also because Marrocchetti, on account of the multiplicity of serious work he had in hand, thought it advisable to have help, not only in the marble work, but also on his clay models; and as those who helped him were not always of his school, so every one brought just so much of their own individuality to bear upon the work as to alter the master's character and style. These are the sad but inevitable results for him who has the bad habit of getting assistance with his clay models.
MARROCCHETTI AND HIS ASSISTANTS.
While I was there in 1856 he had under his directions a very able modeller—I think he was a Roman, by name Bezzi. Bezzi went on modelling, and Marrocchetti directed his work, whilst he sat smoking and talking with me and others. Sometimes he would make him pull down a piece he had been at work on and begin afresh. This method seemed to me then, as it does now, a most strange and dangerous one; and it has not resulted happily, even amongst us, with those who have been induced to follow it.
Marrocchetti was distinguished from other sculptors by another originality—I was almost going to say oddity—and this was, that he coloured his statues often to such a degree that you could no longer distinguish the material of which they were made. I remember to have seen an imposing monument composed of several figures that had been put up in honour of Madame de la Riboisière in the chapel belonging to the hospital which bears that name in Paris. It is completely coloured—I should better say painted all over—with body colour,—the heads, hair, eyes, draperies, all coloured so that it is impossible to distinguish the material in which it was sculptured. You could distinguish absolutely nothing; and if it had not been for the custode, who affirmed that the work was in marble, you might have thought it was coloured plaster or terra cotta. And this worthy man was so sure of having thus added beauty to his statues that he was much astonished that others did not imitate him.
THE COLOURING OF STATUES.
Marrocchetti, there is no doubt, was wrong in loading on colour as he did; but it is a question not yet solved or to be lightly put aside as to whether a delicate veil of colour may not be tried on the fleshy parts. Grecian sculptors used colour, and ours also in the middle ages, although only on particular parts of the figure and on the ornamental portions of their monuments. The only one that I know of, amongst modern artists, who used colour with discretion, was Pradier. The English sculptor Gibson was more audacious. I have seen a Cupid by Gibson entirely coloured—the hair golden, the eyes blue, his quiver chiselled and gilt, and, incredible as it may seem, the wings painted in various colours with tufts or masses of red, green, blue, and orange feathers, like those of an Arara parrot.
THE CRYSTAL PALACE.
Having seen the Kensington Museum, and the other sculpture and picture galleries in which London is so rich, I take pleasure in recounting a little occurrence that happened to me at Sydenham. Sydenham is a place some fifteen miles from London, in an open country, healthy, and rich in green vegetation. There is the famous Crystal Palace, where one can see a permanent exhibition of all the most beautiful things that are scattered about in different parts of the world, beginning with ante-diluvian animals reconstructed scientifically from some fossil bones found in the excavations of mines in Scotland and elsewhere. There are gigantic trees from Australia, one of which, having been cut in pieces, bored, and the centre extracted, to enable it to be transported, had been put together again and planted inside this palace. It is as high as a veritable campanile; at its base a door has been made, so that one can enter inside it; and it holds comfortably some thirty persons. All the tropical plants are there in fine vegetation, in conservatories heated by stoves, where the heat is so oppressive that one longs to go out and breathe the fresh outside air. There also can be seen that famous plant that grows in the water, with its flower floating on the surface. This gigantic flower, when I then saw it, measured not less than two metres in diameter, and the leaves flattened out on the water looked like open umbrellas. It seems really as if one were dreaming, to see such gigantic vegetation. Besides plants and animals from all parts of the earth—from the polar as well as from the tropical regions—there are the full-sized models of men taken from life, and coloured according to nature—Cretins, Esquimaux, savages, Tartars, Mongols, and anthropophagi, all in most natural attitudes, and in their various costumes. There are also full-size reproductions of pieces of Egyptian, Indian, Assyrian, Mongolian, and Moorish architecture; parts of the Alhambra Palace; some rooms from Pompeii; minarets and Chinese temples; sculpture (I mean, be it understood, reproductions in plaster) of the best Egyptian, Indian, Greek, and Roman works, as well as those of the middle ages; Ghiberti's doors; the equestrian statues of Colleoni, of Gattamelata, of Marcus Aurelius; and even some modern works, amongst which is my "Abel."