Rimmel, Eugene: Recollections of the Paris exhibition of 1867 (London, 1868)

THE PARIS EXHIBITION. 210

CHAPTER XXI.

ITALY AND ROME.

Commerce and industry, once so flourishing in Italy, have
experienced during the last centuries numerous vicissitudes ;
but such has not been the case with the Fine Arts, the culti-
vation of which has been constantly kept up in this country,
so richly endowed with imagination. The fact is fully proved
at the Exhibition where Italian manufactures are scarcely
noticed, whilst their pictures, and especially their sculptures,
are the object of universal admiration.

We shall, therefore, this time give deservedly the first
place to the Fine Arts, commencing with the statuary.

To the marble group of " La Piete," by Jean Dupre, of
Florence, the great prize has been awarded. Whilst fully
acknowledging the merits of this work, we think it lacks
somewhat in originality and recalls, in many points, Michael
Angelo's Pieta, of which a model is to be seen in the Crystal
Palace.

We confess ouf preference for "The last moments of
Napoleon 1." by Vela, of Turin* The Emperor seated in an
arm-chair is fast sinking; in his noble countenance are de-
picted mental anguish and bodily suffering ; his right hand
distended seems to let life escape, whilst the left is nervously