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XXVI.—WNotice of an Antique Marble Bust. By AnpREw Coventry, Esq. 
(Read February 16, 1852.) 
| Having had the good fortune last autumn to get an antique marble bust of 
extreme beauty, the question naturally arose, of whom it might be the portrait, 
; if, indeed, it was a portrait at all, and not an ideal head. I had proceeded some 
way in this inquiry, when it was suggested to me one day that it might interest 
the Society to know something of it, and that, though a little foreign no doubt to 
its usual topics, the change would be agreeable, and that ancient art was not 
without its charms. So urged I yielded,—perhaps too easily ; but of this you will 
judge when I have done. 
Unfortunately the history of the bust, before it became mine, is altogether un- 
known to me, further than that it belonged to a gentleman in Westmoreland, who, 
there is reason to think, picked it up whilst travelling in Italy. And I am sorry 
that owing to his absence once more abroad, wandering about with uncertain 
health, and often changing his residence, I have been unable as yet to learn any- 
thing of its early history. Before going further, | may mention that the bust 
would have been here to-night for exhibition if I had found it possible to remove 
it from my house with any safety. It would have been attended, however, with 
considerable risk, as there are several joinings, particularly in the back of the 
shoulders, and it is altogether a little crazy. But in its place I have brought some 
photographs executed by my friend Captain Scott, R.N., and one or two very deli- 
cate photographs, with collodion upon glass, by Mr Tunny of Newington. These 
really leave no room for disappointment or regret. In truth, they shew the fea- 
tures more perfectly than an exhibition of the bust itself, in the full blaze of gas 
_ light, without shadows or relief, could possibly have done. A single light, no doubt, 
from a torch, or day-light entering by a side-window and casting shadows, shews 
it to most advantage; and I only hope this may induce any gentleman present, 
_ who feels so far interested, to call at my house, when it will give me the greatest 
_ pleasure to shew it him. 
The bust is that of a young woman of serene and pensive beauty. The head 
is of Parian marble, but the drapery of Carrara, and seemingly of a later age. 
Probably at an early period some accident befel it, for the Carrara marble extends 
from the drapery upwards a little way to a crack in the neck, and the nose and 
_ the knot of the hair have been slightly injured and restored with Carrara marble. 
It was not unusual, as we know,* for the head to be wrought separately from the 























- * Burton’s Rome, 2. 203. 
VOL. XX. PART III. 5U 
