. . . . He was very cordial and
pleasant, as I have always found him, and began immediately to be
communicative about his own works, or any other subject that came up.
There were two casts of the Venus de' Medici in the rooms, which he said
were valuable in a commercial point of view, being genuine casts from the
mould taken from the statue. He then gave us a quite unexpected but most
interesting lecture on the Venus, demonstrating it, as he proceeded, by
reference to the points which he criticised. The figure, he seemed to
allow, was admirable, though I think he hardly classes it so high as his
own Greek Slave or Eva; but the face, he began with saying, was that of
an idiot. Then, leaning on the pedestal of the cast, he continued, "It
is rather a bold thing to say, isn't it, that the sculptor of the Venus
de' Medici did not know what he was about?"
Truly, it appeared to me so; but Powers went on remorselessly, and
showed, in the first place, that the eye was not like any eye that Nature
ever made; and, indeed, being examined closely, and abstracted from the
rest of the face, it has a very queer look,--less like a human eye than a
half-worn buttonhole! Then he attacked the ear, which, he affirmed and
demonstrated, was placed a good deal too low on the head, thereby giving
an artificial and monstrous height to the portion of the head above it.
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