And in the seventh Eclogue, Virgil, speaking of the statue of Diana, describes it as of marble with scarlet sandals bound round the leg as high as the calf.
Si proprium hoc fuerit, levi de marmore tota
Puniceo stabis suras evincta cothurno.
And there is a passage in Pliny which is decisive, as soon as we understand the allusion. Speaking of Nicias (lib. xxxv. cap. 11), he says, that Praxiteles, when asked which of his marble works best satisfied him, replied, “Those which Nicias has had under his hands.” “So much,” adds Pliny, “did he prize the finishing of Nicias”—tantum circumlitioni ejus tribuebat.
The meaning of this passage hangs on the word circumlitio. Winckelmann follows the mass of commentators in understanding this as referring to some mode of polishing the statues; but Quatremère de Quincey, in his magnificent work “Le Jupiter Olympien,” satisfactorily shows this to be untenable, not only because no sculptor could think of preferring such of his statues as had been better polished, but also because Nicias being a painter, not a sculptor, his services must have been those of a painter.
What were they? Nicias was an encaustic painter, and hence it seems clear that his circumlitio—his mode of finishing the statues, so highly prized by Praxiteles—must have been the application of encaustic painting to those parts which the sculptor wished to have ornamented. For it is quite idle to suppose a sculptor like Praxiteles would allow another sculptor to finish his works. The rough work may be done by other hands, but the finishing is always left to the artist. The statue completed, there still remained the painter’s art to be employed, and for that Nicias was renowned.
Even Winckelmann (“Geschichte der Kunst,” buch I. kap. 2), after noting how the ancients were accustomed to dress their statues, adds, “This gave rise to the painting of those parts of the marble statues which represented the clothes, as may be seen in the Diana found at Herculanæum in 1760. The hair is blonde; the draperies white, with a triple border, one of gold, the other of purple, with festoons of flowers, the third plain purple.”
There are still traces visible of gilding in the hair of statues. Even the Venus de’ Medici has such. And the bored ears speak plainly of earrings.
While the testimony of antiquity is thus explicit, there is the still more convincing testimony of living eyes, which have seen this painting on statues. The celebrated Swedish traveller, Akerblad, says, “I am convinced that the practice of colouring marble statues and buildings was much more frequent than is supposed. The second time I visited Athens, I had opportunity of narrowly inspecting the frieze of the Temple of Theseus, and I came away convinced it had been painted.” Quatremère de Quincey mentions statues he has seen, and refers especially to the Apollo in the Louvre, made of Pentelic marble, almost all over the naked surfaces of which a trace of red was faintly perceptible. The same with a Diana at Versailles; but he adds, “these traces grow daily fainter.” The eyes and mouth of the colossal Pallas de Velletri still retain the violet colour.
Such are a few of the evidences. On examining them, we find them not only unequivocal in themselves, but complementary of each other. Living testimony, supposing it to be accepted without demur, would not suffice to settle the question of what was the ancient practice; for it might not unreasonably be argued that these traces of painting on the statues are only evidences of a degenerate taste—like our whitewashing of cathedrals—and no evidences of Greek artists having perpetrated such offences against taste. But when it is seen, by the testimony of ancient writers, such as Plato, Pliny, Plutarch, and Virgil, that the Greek artists did colour their statues, the fact of the statues being discovered with traces of colour is explained, while on the other hand this fact helps to clear away all trace of doubt which might linger in a supposed equivocalness in the passages from ancient writers.