222 



Gardens for Small Country Houses. 



FIG. 325. — QUARRELLING CUPIDS. 



FIG. 326. — AT MELBOURNE, DERBYSHIRE. 



high, and of a type suitable for comparatively small, though not for very small, 

 gardens. They will be recognised as little cousins to the well-known Watteau-like 

 Shepherd and Shepherdess who simper at each other in the solemn atmosphere of the 

 South Kensington Museum. 



Very serious students of art are urgent to tell us that sculpture has no right to 

 represent violent action ; but even austere critics are inclined to relax these rules 

 in the case of amorini. There is just the right degree of movement in the chubby boy 

 who rides a dolphin (Fig. 322) and spreads a sail to the favouring breeze. Very 

 pretty and thoughtful is the little piper (Fig. 323) who surveys his garden world from 

 the low pier at the end of a dwarf wall. Both these are of to-day, modelled by the 

 craftsmen of the Bromsgrove Guild, very much in the spirit of the figures at Wilton 

 (Fig. 324) and Melbourne, Derbyshire (Figs. 325-6). These were made in lead at the 

 beginning of the eighteenth century by Jan Van Nost, a Dutchman who came 

 to England after William IIL became King, and helped to establish here the Dutch 

 manner of formal gardening. The Melbourne amorini form a dramatic sequence. 

 The chubby pair fight for the possession of a garland, mishandle each other severely, 

 but in the fourth group (not illustrated) seal their reconciliation with a kiss. Sir 

 George Sitwell has written that " a pleasure-ground, however small, should have its 

 presiding genius, its Nymph of flower-garden or grove or woodland or Naiad of the 

 well . . to give a personal interpretation to the forces of Nature . . . and 



for this reason sculpture in a garden is to be regarded not as an ornament, but almost 



