They are but commonplaces in marble and
plaster, such as we should not tolerate on a printed page. He seems to
have been a respectable man, highly respectable, but no more, although
those who knew him seem to have rated him much higher. It is said that
he exclaimed, not very long before his death, that he had fifteen years
of good work still in him; and he appears to have considered all his life
and labor, heretofore, as only preparatory to the great things that he
was to achieve hereafter. I should say, on the contrary, that he was a
man who had done his best, and had done it early; for his Orpheus is
quite as good as anything else we saw in his studio.
People were at work chiselling several statues in marble from the plaster
models,--a very interesting process, and which I should think a doubtful
and hazardous one; but the artists say that there is no risk of mischief,
and that the model is sure to be accurately repeated in the marble.
These persons, who do what is considered the mechanical part of the
business, are often themselves sculptors, and of higher reputation than
those who employ them.
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