22 
HOUSE & GARDEN 
LIVING WITH GOOD SCULPTURE 
ROLLIN LYNDE HARTT 
Good-bye, Plaster Casts! 
But times have changed. With plaster 
casts from the antique no longer in vogue, 
sculptors sculp. They have ceased to de¬ 
pend upon commissions. Although they 
make heroic groups for expositions, parks 
and city squares and portraits for the 
mighty, just as in the old days, they also 
make bronze statuettes for private houses 
and marbles for private gardens. Business 
thrives. It is a struggle to get a vacation. 
I have just been chatting with Mr. Cyrus 
E. Dallin, reduced replicas of whose “Ap¬ 
peal to the Great Spirit’’ are snapped up 
by retailers as fast as the foundry can turn 
them out, and I gather that the hour may 
yet arrive when committeemen, instead of 
sculptors, will be hankering around on their 
bended knees, and the sculptor saying, 
“Sorry to disap¬ 
point you, gentle¬ 
men, but the retail¬ 
ers keep me so 
busy that, honestly, 
I can't be bothered 
with d e si g n i n g 
your proposed 
‘Welcome to Our 
City.’” Or, if he 
gives in, it will be 
because he can sell 
“Welcome to Our 
City” over and 
over again in re¬ 
duced replica till 
ten thousand man¬ 
tle p i e c e s have 
made it a house¬ 
hold word. 
Now, it is true 
that sculpture for 
the private house 
— American 
sculpture, that is— 
got a promising 
start at least forty 
years ago. I re¬ 
member a minia¬ 
ture “Greek Slave” 
by Powers, in our 
parlor at home and 
the English maid 
who, appalled at its 
nudity, referred to 
it always as “that 
shimeless ’ussy.” 
My Uncle Dick, 
meanwhile, pos¬ 
sessed a “Rogers 
group” tinted to 
A unique and interesting use for a bronze bowl is to fill it with 
bright colored fruits that udd a touch of life to the setting. 
The bowl is by Emilie Tiero. Reproduced by courtesy of Gor¬ 
ham; furniture by Mrs. A. V. R. Barneicall 
resemble weak cocoa and entitled “You 
Dirty Boy!” Wonderful! As a double¬ 
page cartoon for “Life,” perfect. Quite 
properly, the Metropolitan Museum pre¬ 
serves a Rogers group — “Neighboring 
Pews” or some such pleasantry. It belongs 
there because it represents one stage (the 
funniest, doubtless) in that diminuendo of 
humbugs which records the growth of taste 
among the people of America. 
The Ubiquitous Venus 
But presently America discovered the 
antique, and worshipped it in plaster. So 
the Milo Venus—in our house we had three 
of her, varying in size and known as Kate, 
Duplicate and Triplicate—began her happy 
reign. Mutilated and therefore devoid of 
a too frisky realism, half-draped and there¬ 
fore but half “shimeless,” she gained a pop¬ 
ularity never enjoyed by Sister de Medici, 
while Hermes, gloriously nude, appeared 
as a mere bust. As for the lovely goddess 
with wings, who went clad from divine 
shoulder to divine heel, Mr. Roswell Field 
could write, truthfully enough, “Every Bos¬ 
ton woman has a moral purpose, a rubber- 
plant, and a Samothracian Victory.” 
Naturally, when the purchaser had al¬ 
ways a cast in his eye, so to speak, it was a 
blow to our native sculptors. They were 
unable to take Charles Lamb’s view of a 
trying situation and turn his “Hang the age, 
I'll write for antiquity” into “Hang the age, 
I’ll sculp for antiquity.” Instead, with 
plaster copies of the antique overrunning 
American houses, they despaired of work¬ 
ing for the retailer, ancient or modern, and 
let George do it. George, by name Caproni, 
accepted the bonanza. For the sincerity, 
the good taste, and the technical skill with 
which he fulfilled his obligations, Mr. Dal¬ 
lin has only the warmest praise and sincere 
appreciation. But—but—! 
Once the word went forth that plaster 
casts were “the thing,” the same abomina¬ 
tion set in as when the word went forth 
that etchings were the thing. Any etching— 
even those long, slim, wishy-washy creations 
T HERE is an astonishing new definition 
—"Sculptor: One who sculps”— 
whereas the sculptors I used to meet (Rain- 
ford Billings, for instance) valued a studio 
rather less than a Kansan in New York 
City values a bed. From necessity, they did 
everything but “sculp.” True to the old 
epigram, “What is fame? Politeness to 
newspaper men,” Billings petted up journal¬ 
ists. An unwilling politician, he pulled 
wires—and sometimes trouser-legs — hop¬ 
ing against hope for a chance to sculp. Be¬ 
tween pow-wows with committeemen, who 
kept saying, “No job from us until you 
have won the National reputation obtainable 
only by getting a job from us,” he passed 
his time watering a clay monument he had 
modeled years before and “waiting for the 
right man to die.” 
"Pursued,” by A. P. 
Proctor, is a thrilling 
glimpse of Indian life, 
done in a fine colored 
bronze and suitable for 
a man's den or the 
library 
