A beautiful statue of Bacchus has recently been discovered in a hollow
place beneath the staircase in the library at Hadrian’s Villa, Rome. It
represents the god not as the coarse dissipated old man, but according
to his later aspect, as a beautiful effeminate youth. It is singularly
well preserved, the right hand only being missing. Its great beauty was
at once recognised, and casts were immediately made, one of which is at
Berlin, another at Strassburg, and a third in the new Cast Museum of
Sculpture at Cambridge. The statue represents a youth standing with the
weight of the body thrown on the right leg; the right hand is raised,
and held, it is supposed, the two-handled wine-cup or _kantharos_ of
Bacchus. Over the right shoulder is thrown a _nebris_ (fawn-skin),
which falls back and front with studied symmetry. A question has arisen
amongst the learned on these subjects as to whether this beautiful
work of ancient art is itself an original, or a copy in marble from a
bronze original. And then comes the still more important inquiry, what
is its date? Professor Michaelis—a noted authority—states his opinion
that ‘the statue is a work of the eclectic school, the post-Alexandrian
manner which selected and combined, and advisedly imitated, the style
of bygone manners, which sought to revive the manner of the best
Attic and Argive work;’ and which the learned professor fancies he
can discern by certain peculiar appearances and treatment, and a want
of harmony in many minute details, which, however, could hardly occur
to any ordinary spectator, who sees before him simply an exquisitely
finished and beautiful work of antique art.