COEERET, OR JEWEL-CASE.
contributed to the decoration of the Ilerseum of Olympus by the two brothers Doryclidas and Medon, pupilsof the last-named artists.
Pausanias speaks highly of a series of statues representing the Hours, which were executed in ivory by Smilis,a sculptor, who lived about 560 years b.c. These figures were represented as seated on thrones, and were placedbeside a statue of Themis, one of the most celebrated productions of Doryclidas.
About 525 years before Christ, Calachus produced a statue of Diana at Sicyon , in gold and ivory, which,though somewhat hard in style, was much admired. Endteus worked in the same manner, and executed acelebrated winged Minerva, principally in wood, and a statue of the same goddess in ivory, at Erythree. Hegesias ,or Hegeas, succeeded, about 491 b.c. ; and, somewhat later, Calamis executed a figure of iEsculapius, in goldand ivory, at Sicyon . This city, indeed, appears to have been highly celebrated for this species of art, sincethe statue of Juno of Argos was produced by Polycletes, a native of Sicyon, —so able an architect, and sogood a sculptor, that one of his statues was regarded by his contemporaries as the standard of proportion bywhich the excellence of similar works was generally estimated. This artist lived about 459 years b.c.
In approaching the age of Pericles we meet with a remarkable concatenation of circumstances, tending tomake this period the culminating point of chryselephantine art. Seneca relates that the philosopher Democritus ,who lived about this time, discovered the means of softening ivory; and, under the immortal Phidias, Athens and other cities of Greece were embellished with a number of colossal statues in this style. The artistic lifeof Phidias probably extended from about the seventy-fourth to the eighty-eighth Olympiad. His renownedMinerva of the Parthenon was finished in the second year of the eighty-fifth Olympiad. A just idea of thegrandeur of this statue, and the technical peculiarities of its execution, may be formed from an examination ofM. Quatremere de Quincy’s admirable restoration of it. In the first year of the eighty-seventh Olympiad, Phidias completed his great Jupiter in the same style.
Among the most celebrated pupils of the last-mentioned artist, we find the names of Alcamenes of Athens ,Scynnus of Scio, and Eucadmus. A Bacchus , by the former of these, was very generally admired. Theocosmos,who studied in the same school, commenced a colossal Jupiter Olympus at Megara, of which he was only able tocomplete the head, the remainder having been executed in terra cotta and plaster.
From the period of this last-named work (about 347 b.c.) a long interval occurs, in which a practice ofcovering statues with a species of encaustic varnish of white wax was adopted,—probably to give the effect ofivory, and to avoid the labour and expense entailed by the employment of that material. Praxiteles (about336 b.c.) brought the latter process to perfection.
The art of sculptuie in ivory, which thus appeals to have declined considerably m Greece , was extensivelyadopted in other countries. Thus we find that, in Egypt , the ship of Ptolemy Philadelphus was adorned withivory statues, wonderful in their workmanship and magnificence; and thus it was that Nicomedes takingBithynia , between the years 279 and 251 b.c., executed several works in the same style.
Towards the year 170 b.c., Antiochus Epiphanes, the great protector of learning in Syria , endeavouredto revive this among other arts in Greece . He employed Cossutus, a Roman architect, to continue the erectionof the temple of Jupiter Olympus at Athens , causing a great number of ivory and gold statues to be madethere. It was his desire to place the Phidian Jupiter in the temple at Jerusalem , but, failing in that attempt,he succeeded in producing a colossal Jupiter at Antioch, in imitation of that of Phidias . Excited, probably,by this revival, there is reason to believe that the sons of Polycles (to whom Winckelmann ascribes the BorgheseHermaphrodite) made a Minerva Cranea, in gold and ivory, near to Elatea. >
The first work of this kind which we find mentioned as executed at Rome was by Pasiteles, a Greekartist, who settled there about seventy-five years b.c. Among his productions in the ancient style was a Jupiterin ivory, for the temple of Metellus. There is little ground, however, to suppose that ivory statues were popularin the early ages of Rome ; since it is not till we approach the Christian era that many traces can be foundof the existence of the art. The Olympian Jupiter was yet existing at Athens in the reign of Caligula , a.d. 37,and that monarch is recorded to have been anxious to procure its transport to Rome . Under the auspicesof the great reviver, Hadrian, many chryselephantine statues were executed at Athens ; and down to as latea period as a.d. 150, the art continued to be occasionally practised. From that time, however, the connexionbetween ivory and the precious metals appears to have ceased; and the practice of ivory carving is onlyto be traced in its application to small objects, such as the consular diptychs, &c.
Of the peculiarities of style which distinguish the early Christian carvings, and the successive steps whichlead from them to the refined productions of Jean Goujon and Du Quesnoy , it will be our duty to speak ona future occasion.