REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 53 



The first advances were made in 1875, when four costumed figures 

 were imported from Ja])aii. These were exceedingly spirited and effec- 

 tive, and when examined in detail showed such conscientious workman- 

 ship and such thorough fidelity to nature that they have served as an 

 inspiration and a model for our workmen up to this day. Two of these 

 figures, representing an actor and an actress in the costume of Japan- 

 ese nobility, were carved in wood, and s<'<'m to show the extreme limits 

 of this material in the construction of the human model. The other 

 two, a laborer and his wife (PI. 42), are in papier-mache and are satis- 

 factory in the highest degree. The material is brought to an extreme 

 of hardness, strength, and delicacy of line which no American work- 

 man has been able to rival. Indeed, we have not yet progressed 

 beyond the use of the much heavier and clumsier plaster of ]*aris. 

 The modeling is almost perfect, as may be judged from the fact that 

 the figures, with or without clothing, stand poised upon their feet 

 without any attachment to the bottom of the case. The haii- is 

 attached directly to the figures and has none of the wig-bke appear- 

 ance which is almost universal in figures of this kind. The eyes, 

 though glass is used for the outer film, are not glass eyes. Even the 

 nails are cunningly fashioned of horn and inserted; and the coloring, 

 of which more will be said hereafter, is as yet the despair of our work- 

 men. The figures as a whole exhibit such conscientious and painstak- 

 ing accuracy, and such fidelity to nature in the smallest details, that 

 too much can not be said in their praise. (See PI. 43.) 



In 1881 some figures were made for us by M. Achille Colin, a French 

 sculptor living in Washington, on a new plan. These were executed 

 in accordance with the rules of sculpture, the hair and the clothing 

 to be of the same material as the head and body, and the sculptor's 

 eye to be used instead of the customary one of glass. They were 

 then painted by a portrait painter whose life had been spent in delin- 

 eating Indians. The result was thoroughly satisfactory, and nothing 

 better has since been done. (Pis. 44 and 45.) It is i)robable that 

 this method will be used more and more in the future, since many of 

 the races whose lineaments and costumes it is most desirable to per- 

 petuate can only be shown in this way. Their costumes no longer 

 exist, and nuist be supplied by the modeler and painter frouj such ])or- 

 traits as those of which we have a large nund:»er in the Catlin gallery. 

 When actual garments are not used, there is no reason for the unsightly 

 wig or the staring glass eye. 



A modification of the same method was employed by ]\Ir. U. S. J. 

 Dunbar, a Washingtim sculptor, in modeling the face of a Sioux girl, 

 Rosa White Thunder, for a full-length figure to be clad in a modern 

 Sioux costume of blue cloth ornamented with elk ivory, obtained from 

 the original, at that time a pnpil in the Indian scliool at Carlisle. In 

 this figure, although tlie sculptured eye is used, the hair is re[)resented 

 by a wig. The result is only partly satisfactory, but the experiment is 

 an interesting one. (PI. 46.) 



