94 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



ward gaze and impassibility of feature reminds the beholder 

 of certain types of Italian women of the fifteenth and six- 

 teenth centuries, whose high intellectual endowment lacked 

 the ennobling and purifying influences of warm emotion or 

 moral sensibility. In this bust the dress and drapery are 

 of bronze, and an opal adornment supplements the effect 

 produced by the sharp contrast of the mellow-hued ivory and 

 the sombre bronze. 



A group that has received much praise is the " Mors Janua 

 Vitse " by Harry Bates. Here the fair and delicate figure of 

 a young girl beautifully carved in ivory is thrown into strong 

 relief by contrast with the form of Death, entirely of bronze, 

 suggesting in a striking way the dark portal through which all 

 souls must pass in order to reach the new, eternal life beyond. 



The universal interest that has been aroused by the most 

 tragic figure among the rulers of our time, the unhappy King 

 Albert of Belgium, whose courageous and sturdy defence of 

 the little strip of his Kingdom still left to him has earned the 

 admiration of friends and foes alike, makes the ivory repre- 

 sentations of this sovereign more interesting to us than 

 works of merely artistic excellence. 



The most important of these ivory portraits are some me- 

 dals or medallions executed within a year or two by Belgian 

 ivory carvers. Both the King and the Queen of the Belgians 

 have been depicted in this by the sculptor Godefroid de 

 Vreese, these medallions being created to commemorate the 

 foundation of the "Santoria Populaires" of La Hulpe. 

 The originals were presented to the King and replicas are in 

 the possession of Hon. Mr. Waroeque, a member of the Bel- 

 gian Parliament. Another fine ivory portrait-medallion of 

 King Albert has been carved by the Belgian artist, Mr. Josue 

 Dupon, of Antwerp. Of this there exists but a single ex- 

 ample. A memorial of King Albert's uncle and predecessor, 

 Leopold II, is of more ambitious type, being a large ivory 



