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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



August, 1906 



The Sphinx of Castle Hill 



" Pan "—at Castle Hill 



would have been of the same material. I regret the lead 

 statues, but the house was best unbuilt, as it was a ponderous 

 and not very successful exercise in a very bulky manner. The 

 two statues on the gate piers are of Diana and Actaeon, and 

 give an added interest to a range of admirably wrought iron- 

 work. At Hardwick Hall there are six lead statues in the 

 garden. Two represent Painting and Sculpture, and two are 

 musicians, one holding a violin, the other a trumpet. The 

 remaining two are youths, one Bacchanalian with uplifted 

 cup, the other of somewhat lascivious aspect, with a flute. 

 These statues were taken a few years ago to Hardwick from 

 Chatsworth. They are average examples of a type of figure 

 which the eighteenth century turned out in considerable 

 quantities. The lady has a look of massive complacency 

 which would induce boredom in a gallery, but is not without 

 merit in the restful atmosphere of a formal garden. The 

 drapery of this figure is uninteresting, but no worse. It is, I 

 imagine, intended to be classical. On some of the others the 

 intention somewhat fails, and this is notably the case with the 

 violin player. Her clothing is an exercise in drapery instinct 

 with the spirit of compromise. It suggests the result of a 

 study of Greek art by an intelligent Papuan. 



It would be unreasonable, however, to demand too much 

 of a garden statue. In the garden one can be tolerant and 



does not look for masterpieces. If I may quote from Mr. 

 Lethaby's charming little book on leadwork, "Lead is homely 

 and ordinary and not too good to receive the graffiti of 

 lovers' knots, red letter dates and initials." One can not, 

 for example, regard seriously the male Arcadian figure here 

 pictured. It is merely a witticism in lead. It erects the inap- 

 propriateness of material to subject almost into an exact 

 science. Shepherdesses and their swains are so essentially the 

 subjects for the delicacy of Dresden china that to transpose 

 them into the coarseness of lead and make them four feet high 

 compels amusement. Considering the unfitness of the ma- 

 terial, it is noteworthy that the feeling of the figure and the 

 light hang of the shepherd's clothes are so well conveyed. 

 This statue, which is of the middle of the eighteenth century, 

 is now in the South Kensington Museum facing a shepherdess. 

 It is the sort of statue that would gain by some touches of 

 gilt. In days past they often went further and painted the 

 figures all the colors of the rainbow. That seems to be a 

 superfluity of naughtiness. There is a fitness in the gilding of 

 a lead statue. It is a metallic decoration on a metallic ground. 

 It throws up the natural color of the lead, while painting in 

 other colors (unless they are transparent colors which illumin- 

 ate without veiling the metallic feeling) is almost necessarily 

 a mistake. 



