618 POLYCHROMY IN GREEK STATUARY. 



apparent — a bright-red tunic, a dark-red pallium, armor bordered with 

 yellow fringes and ornamented with chiseled relief, set off with car- 

 mine, purple, and blue — all give us the idea of a statue on which the 

 richest polychromy has been lavished. Before we lose the last trace of 

 this persistent custom, we have to go very far down into the times of 

 the Emperors. A statue of Faustine, the wife of Antonine the Pious, 

 who died in 141, shows that the habit of gilding the hair and of embel- 

 lishing the drapery with color was then still in existence. 



IV. 



All these facts are sufficient, it seems to us, to prove the essential 

 point; to show how unfounded the prejudice is which for a long time 

 refused to believe that there was any painted statuary in Greece. But 

 they do not yet satisfy our curiosity; we should like to know a great 

 deal more about it. Instead of painfully searching for marbles, scat- 

 tered about here and there, that have faint traces of half-effaced color- 

 ing, we would like to have a clear and complete view of a painted 

 statue in all the freshness of its polychromy, and to know accurately 

 what harmonies a master like Mcias could realize by adding to a mar- 

 ble carved by Praxiteles the charm of colors. We must be resigned; 

 we can only very imperfectly catch a glimpse, as it were, of the full effect 

 of a painted statue. In order to conjure up at least a faint image, we 

 should have to give up mere theories, resort to practical applications, 

 and try to re-create, either by molding or by a copy in marble, the colors, 

 as we restore on paper, with fragments of columns and capitals, the 

 order of a Greek temple. This is not a dream that can not be realized. 

 Similar efforts have been made from time to time. In 1885, the eminent 

 director of the Albertinum in Dresden, Mr. Georg Treu, organized in 

 the Berlin Nation al-Galerie an exhibition of polychromatic statuary, 

 belonging to all countries and all ages, from Egyptian statues in lime- 

 stone to painted marble busts and friezes in majolica by contemporary 

 artists. By the side of a painted relief in wax by our countryman, Mr. 

 Henry Oros, of busts in wood and in terra cotta or in marble, coining 

 from Italian and Spanish schools, Greek polychromy was represented 

 by moldings, which reproduced the colors of the originals, or by res- 

 torations, such as a grand draped statue from Herculaneum, painted 

 in wax by Mr. Ludwig Otto. 1 More recently, investigations carried 

 on by Mr. Georg Treu in antique polychromy, have resulted in Dresden 

 in still other efforts, which deserve most careful attention. Mr. Treu 

 has been kind enough to send me notes on the subject, full of details, 

 and accompanied by photographs of moldings after the auticpie, col- 

 ored by Mr. J. E. Sattler; the Satyr leaning on his elbows, in the 

 Capitol, has been restored with all the tints of gold and of ivory of a 



^tellung farbiger unci getonter Bildwerke in der Natioual-Galerie zu Berlin. 

 Berlin, 1885. 



