[240]Sir Joshua Reynolds discovers in the account here given “an artist-like description of the effect of glazing, or scumbling, such as was practised by Titian and the rest of the Venetian painters.”
[241]A service of three dishes.
[242]The ancient writers abound in praises of this wonderful statue. Lucian, however, has given the most complete and artistic description of it. It was supposed by the ancients, to represent Venus as standing before Paris, when he awarded to her the prize of beauty; but it has been well remarked, that the drapery in the right hand, and the vase by the side of the figure, indicate that she has either just left or is about to enter the bath. It was ultimately carried to Constantinople, where it perished by fire in the reign of Justinian. It is doubtful whether there are any copies of it in existence. There is, however, a so-called copy in the gardens of the Vatican, and another in the Glyptothek, at Munich. It is supposed that Cleomenes, in making the Venus de Medici, imitated the Cnidian Venus in some degree.
[243]This group is generally supposed to have been identical with the Laocoön still to be seen in the Court of the Belvedere, in the Vatican at Rome; having been found, in 1506, in a vault beneath the spot known as the Place de Sette Sale, by Felix de Eredi, who surrendered it, in consideration of a pension, to Pope Julius II. The group, however, is not made of a single block, which has caused some to doubt its identity: but it is not improbable, that when originally made, its joints were not perceptible to a common observer. The spot, too, where it was found was actually part of the palace of Titus. It is most probable that the artists had the beautiful episode of Laocoön in view, as penned by Virgil, Æn. B. II.
[244]So called from ὀβελισκὸς, a “small spit,” in consequence of their tapering form.
[245]Meaning, probably, that in the Egyptian language, the same word is used as signifying a “spit” and a “ray” of light; for it is generally agreed that the word “obeliscus” is of Greek origin.
[246]This, Hardouin says, was the same obelisk that was afterwards erected by Constantine, son of Constantine the Great, in the Circus Maximus at Rome; whence it was removed by Pope Sextus V., in the year 1588, to the Basilica of the Lateran.
[247]Evidently a stupendous monument, or rather aggregate of buildings, erected by Ptolemy II., Philadelphus, in memory of his wife and sister, Arsinoë.