A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities Part 1

A Catalogue of Sculpture in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum.

Volume I.

by A. H. Smith.

PREFACE.

The present volume by Mr. Arthur Smith, a.s.sistant in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities, includes the sculptures of the Archaic period: those of the Parthenon and other Athenian buildings; the remains of the temple at Phigaleia; the Greek reliefs, and some other sculptures which, though produced in Roman times, yet represent Greek originals of the great age.

In the section which deals with the sculptures of Athens much has been retained from Sir Charles Newton's _Guide to the Elgin Room_, Pts.

I.-II. While adding the results of more recent research, Mr. Smith has contributed on his part interesting material.

The sculptures of the archaic period have of late years been the subject of much discussion; the results of these discussions, as they apply to the collection of the British Museum, have now been brought together and summarized.

The Greek reliefs, which form an important section of the present volume, belong to a cla.s.s of sculptures which have produced much difference of opinion as to the subjects represented by them. Mr.

Smith has stated briefly the princ.i.p.al views, by way of introduction to the several cla.s.ses of reliefs.

A. S. MURRAY _3rd December, 1891._

INTRODUCTION.

The collection of ancient sculpture in marble, included in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities in the British Museum, may be said to represent the efforts of more than two centuries, though the foundation of the Museum itself is of a considerably more recent date.[1]

The British Museum was established by Parliament in 1753. In that year, by the statute 26 Geo. II. cap. 22, a trust was created to unite and maintain as one collection the Museum of Sir Hans Sloane, the Cottonian Library, and the Harleian Collection of Ma.n.u.scripts.

Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753),[2] physician, botanist, and President of the Royal Society in succession to Newton, had formed in his lifetime a very extensive museum, consisting mainly of books, natural history collections, and ethnographical objects. At the same time cla.s.sical antiquities were represented by bronzes, gems, vases, terracottas, and a few sculptures in marble. The examples, however, of Greek sculpture were few and unimportant, and in most instances they cannot now be recognized with certainty from the brief entries in Sir Hans Sloane's catalogue. Such as they were, they were chiefly derived from the collection of John Kemp, an antiquary and collector early in the eighteenth century (died 1717). The Sloane Collection included the sepulchral vase, No. 682 in the present volume; a small relief with two dogs and a wild boar; a figure of Asclepios, a few heads, busts, urns of marble or alabaster, and a few Greek and Latin inscriptions.

Three of the pieces of sculpture in the Museum are said by Sloane[3]

to have been derived from the Arundel Collection, which was the first great collection of cla.s.sical antiques formed in this country. Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel (1585-1646), was the first Englishman who employed agents to collect for him in Greece and the Greek Islands, as well as in Italy. The collection thus formed was broken up in the reign of Charles II. The inscriptions were given by Henry Howard, afterwards sixth Duke of Norfolk, to the University of Oxford in 1667.

The sculptures were scattered. A part pa.s.sed through the hands of the Earls of Pomfret to the University of Oxford, while others were lost, or dispersed among private collectors.[4] The few examples named above thus found their way into the original collection of the British Museum. A more important fragment, however, from the Arundel Collection was added to the Museum at an early date, namely the bronze head, formerly known as Homer,[5] which was presented by the ninth Earl of Exeter in 1760. This head had previously been in the collection of Dr. Richard Mead,[6] physician and antiquary (1673-1754), and was sold with his collection in 1754.[7]

Between the foundation of the British Museum in 1753 and the accession of the Townley Collection in 1805, the collection of sculpture made but slow progress. The first donor of sculpture was Thomas Hollis (1720-1774), of Cors...o...b.., in Dorsetshire, a collector, and benefactor to several branches of the Museum. In 1757 Hollis gave a collection of antiquities, including several marbles, chiefly small busts and inscriptions.[8] In 1764 he gave a Greek relief, which cannot be identified, and in 1765 a marble head of a Faun.

In 1772 Matthew Duane (lawyer and antiquary, 1707-1785) joined in a gift of sculptures with Thomas Tyrwhitt (1720-1786), a scholar, who also bequeathed his library of cla.s.sical authors to the British Museum. The sculptures in question[9] were purchased by the donors at an auction in London,[10] in order that they might be put in a place of safety.

The year 1772 is also noteworthy as the date of the first Parliamentary grant for the augmentation of the Museum collection. The House of Commons in that year voted a sum of 8410 for the purchase of the valuable museum of antiquities which had been formed by Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803), British Amba.s.sador at Naples, 1764-1800.

The vases formed the most important section, but the collection also contained several sculptures in the round and in relief.[11] On the other hand a square altar with reliefs[12] was presented by Sir W.

Hamilton in 1776, and perhaps also a head of Heracles.[13] A colossal foot of Apollo[14] was given in 1784.

In 1780 an interesting relief, No. 750, was presented by Sir Joseph Banks, and Col. the Hon. A. C. Fraser, of Lovat (1736-1815). Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820), traveller, botanist, and President of the Royal Society, was a great benefactor to the Library and Botanical collections, but his gifts of sculpture were limited to this relief, and to a relief representing Jupiter and Ceres, presented in 1809.

Charles Townley gave two marble fountains[15] in 1786, but his main collections were not added to the Museum till after his death. A valuable gift was received from the Society of Dilettanti, about 1795, consisting of the sculptures and inscriptions collected by the expedition to Ionia which had been sent out by that Society in 1764, under the direction of Dr. Richard Chandler. The collection included several Attic reliefs,[16] and some important inscriptions, among them the well-known report on the progress of the Erechtheion.[17] In 1870 the same Society presented the fruits of its excavations at Priene, conducted by Mr. R. P. Pullan.

Two Roman portrait statues, of inferior merit, which had pa.s.sed into the hands of the British at the Capitulation of Alexandria, in 1800, were placed in the Department of Antiquities, in 1802.

The collection of sculpture which had thus slowly come into existence during the first fifty years of the Museum's history, received its most brilliant accessions during the first quarter of the present century.

The great collection that had been formed by Charles Townley[18] was purchased in 1805 by Act of Parliament, 45 Geo. III. cap. 127, for 20,000, a sum greatly below the value of the sculptures. Charles Townley (1737-1805), of Townley, in Lancashire, acquired a large part of his marbles, during a residence in Italy, between 1768 and 1772, but continued collecting, after his return to England. The chief sources from which he formed his museum were the following: (1) the older Roman collections, from which Townley made numerous purchases; (2) the excavations carried on by Gavin Hamilton, a Scotch painter living in Rome (died 1797), and by Thomas Jenkins, an English banker; (3) occasional purchases from older English collections. Thus the relief of Exakestes[19] was derived from the collection of Dr. Richard Mead (see above). The relief of Xanthippos[20] had been brought to England by Dr. Anthony Askew, a physician, who visited Athens and the East, about 1747, and compiled a ma.n.u.script volume of inscriptions, now in the British Museum (Burney MSS., No. 402). Several pieces[21]

were also obtained from the collection formed at Wimbledon by Lyde Browne, a virtuoso and Director of the Bank of England, who died in 1787.

The accession of the Townley Collection in 1805 made necessary the erection of a special building in the garden of the then existing Montague House, and also caused the creation of a separate Department under Taylor Combe, for the custody of the antiquities, which had been previously attached to the Library.

In 1814, the Phigaleian sculptures were purchased of the explorers[22]

in a public auction at Zante, and the Museum thereby acquired its first series of sculptures from a Greek building. A fragment, which had been lost during the transportation of the marbles,[23] was presented by Mr. J. Spencer Stanhope in 1816.

Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin (1766-1841), whose collection was the next and greatest addition to the British Museum, had been appointed British Amba.s.sador to the Porte in 1799. On his appointment, he resolved to make his time of office of service to the cause of art, and accordingly engaged a body of five architects, draughtsmen and formatori, under Lusieri, a Neapolitan portrait painter, to make casts, plans and drawings from the remains in Greece, and more particularly at Athens. While the work was in progress, Lord Elgin became aware of the rapid destruction that was taking place of the sculptures in Athens. The success of the British arms in Egypt having made the disposition of the Porte favourable to the British Amba.s.sador, a firman was obtained which sanctioned the removal of the sculptures. The whole collection, formed by Lord Elgin's agents, was, after long negotiations, and an enquiry by a Select Committee of the House of Commons, purchased of Lord Elgin for 35,000 in 1816. It consists of sculptures and architectural fragments from the Parthenon, the Erechtheion, and other Athenian buildings; casts, which have now become of great value, from the Parthenon, the Theseion, and the Monument of Lysicrates; a considerable number of Greek reliefs, princ.i.p.ally from Athens; fragments from Mycenae and elsewhere; drawings and plans.

The marbles and casts of the Parthenon acquired in the Elgin Collection, have since been supplemented, not only by casts of sculptures newly discovered at Athens, but also by the additions of fragments, removed from Athens by occasional travellers, and acquired for the Museum by donation or purchase. The gifts include a head of a Lapith,[24] from the Duke of Devonshire, and pieces of the frieze from Mr. C. R. c.o.c.kerell,[25] and Mr. J. H. Smith-Barry;[26] also from the Society of Dilettanti[27] and the Royal Academy.[28]

Lord Elgin was actively a.s.sisted in the East by his secretary, William Richard Hamilton (1777-1859), who afterwards became Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1809-1822). From Mr. Hamilton the Museum received a few sculptures, including a sepulchral relief from Tarentum.[29]

In 1824 the British Museum obtained by bequest the collections of Richard Payne Knight (1749-1824), a learned but fanciful antiquarian, and a leading member of the Society of Dilettanti. Payne Knight's collection was especially rich in bronzes, gems, and coins, but it also contained a series of marble portrait busts.

The next addition of importance was the collection of sculptures and casts brought at the public expense in 1842 from Xanthos and other sites in Lycia, discovered by Sir Charles Fellows (1799-1860), in the course of his journeys of 1838 and 1840.[30]

In 1846, permission was given by the Porte to the then British Amba.s.sador, Sir Stratford Canning, afterwards Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe (1786-1880), to remove twelve slabs of the frieze of the Mausoleum from Halicarna.s.sos. These sculptures, long known to travellers,[31] were taken from the walls of the castle of Budrum, and presented by the Amba.s.sador to the British Museum.

Ten years later the influence of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was exerted to support Sir Charles Newton in his explorations in Asia Minor. Sir Charles Newton exchanged his position at the British Museum, in 1856, for the post of British Vice-Consul at Mitylene, which he held till 1859, and in that capacity he was able, on behalf of the Trustees, to excavate the sites of the Mausoleum at Halicarna.s.sos, and of the temple of Demeter at Cnidos. He also removed the archaic statues of Branchidae, and collected several minor pieces of sculpture. The excavations on the site of the Mausoleum added four slabs to the series presented by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe in 1840.

One additional slab was purchased in 1865 of the Marchese Serra, of Genoa.

While the excavations of the Mausoleum were in progress, the Crimean campaign afforded an opportunity to Col. Westmacott to form a collection of sculptures from Kertch and the neighbourhood, ill.u.s.trating the later stages of Greek art on the Euxine.

In the years 1860-1861, Captain, now General Sir R. Murdoch Smith, R.E., and Commander E. A. Porcher, R.N., carried out a series of excavations on the site of Cyrene, and discovered a considerable number of sculptures in marble, and an admirable bronze portrait head, among the ruins of the temples of Apollo, Dionysos and Aphrodite, and elsewhere.

The excavations which were carried on at Ephesus by the late Mr.

John Turtle Wood,[32] for the British Museum, began in 1863, and were continued till 1874, the site of the great temple of Artemis not having been determined before the spring of 1870. Besides excavating the site of the temple, Mr. Wood obtained inscriptions and sculptures from the Odeum, the great Theatre, and the road to the temple of Artemis.

The site of Naucratis in the Egyptian Delta was discovered by Mr. W.

M. Flinders Petrie, and was excavated, partly by the discoverer, and partly by Mr. E. A. Gardner, at the cost of the Egypt Exploration Fund in the years 1884-6.[33] The most important objects found were fragments of pottery, but there were also some architectural remains, and archaic statuettes of interest.

In 1889 and 1891, various sculptures, including a head of Eros from Paphos, and a large capital with projecting bulls' heads from the Cyprian Salamis, have been presented by the Cyprus Exploration Fund.

Besides the proceeds of the systematic researches enumerated above, the collection of sculpture has been frequently increased during the present century with the specimens collected by private travellers in the East. Thus in 1818, H. Gally Knight (1784-1846), an antiquarian and writer on the history of architecture, with N. Fazakerly, presented a statue from Athens.[34] In 1820, J. P. Gandy Deering (1787-1850), an architect who had taken part in the Dilettanti Expedition to Ionia of 1811, presented sculptures that he had discovered at Rhamnus in Attica.[35] In 1839, Colonel W. M. Leake, an eminent traveller and topographer (1777-1860), presented several Greek sculptures.[36] A small collection of reliefs, and of architectural fragments from Athens and elsewhere, was purchased from H. W. Inwood, the author of a treatise on the Erechtheion.

In 1861, the fifth Earl of Aberdeen presented a collection which had been formed in Greece in 1801 by George, fourth Earl of Aberdeen, a connoisseur, known to his contemporaries as "Athenian Aberdeen."[37]

In 1864 a collection of sculptures was purchased which had been formed by Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe, sixth Viscount Strangford (1783-1855), formerly Amba.s.sador to the Porte, and which included the "Strangford Apollo."[38]

Amongst purchases that have taken place from time to time we may also mention that of the Apollo[39] from the collection of the Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier in 1818. In 1864 several Graeco-Roman sculptures[40]

were purchased from the Farnese Collection at Rome. The museum of the Duc de Blacas, purchased in 1867, contained the head of Asclepios from Melos, and the relief discovered at the same time.[41] For the numerous cases not here mentioned in which sculptures have been acquired by donation or bequest, the reader is referred to the pages of the catalogue.

Finally, it may be observed that not a few sculptures in the British Museum have been found under peculiar circ.u.mstances in this country.

Such specimens have been brought to England by travellers, whose collections have afterwards been broken up, lost or neglected, and have been rescued by chance from warehouses, gardens, or masons'