DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.32873#0050
xxxvi
INTRODUCTION
medals are brilliant performances; and his jewellery,
though at times tending to the over-ornate, is unques-
tionably exquisite, both in design and workmanship. A
similar conclusion may be drawn from a study of his
smaller works in statuary. For example, the grace and
restrained simplicity of the wax model for the
is almost worthy of comparison with examples of the
best periods in the history of sculpture. But when the
craftsman repeats this exquisite model in colossal bronze
he sacrifices grace and purity of line to the then pre-
vailing fashion for,the merely effectively large; and he
further mars the composition by over-elaboration in
purely decorative detail.
It is somewhat of an irony of fate that the ^zz^>-
which was to Cellini but an afterthought of
his declining years, should, in the eyes of posterity, have
acquired for him,—and in a secondary sense for his much-
vaunted works,—a fame such as none of those works—
not even his cherished Ar^zzj, for which he endured so
much—could ever have secured for themselves.
Since the two causes above-mentioned kept the name
and fame of Cellini always before the minds and eyes of
subsequent art-connoisseurs, and no one arose competent
or bold enough to dispute attributions, a vast amount of
contemporary work (much of it not even Italian at all)
has been from time to time recklessly attributed to him.
Of late years, however, M. Eugene Plon, Mr. Sidney
Churchill, and other careful and conscientious students
of the "Art of the Goldsmith," have carefully sifted
these attributions, and it is in humble transcript of those
eminent authorities that the lists at the end of this
present work have been compiled. There is, however,
INTRODUCTION
medals are brilliant performances; and his jewellery,
though at times tending to the over-ornate, is unques-
tionably exquisite, both in design and workmanship. A
similar conclusion may be drawn from a study of his
smaller works in statuary. For example, the grace and
restrained simplicity of the wax model for the
is almost worthy of comparison with examples of the
best periods in the history of sculpture. But when the
craftsman repeats this exquisite model in colossal bronze
he sacrifices grace and purity of line to the then pre-
vailing fashion for,the merely effectively large; and he
further mars the composition by over-elaboration in
purely decorative detail.
It is somewhat of an irony of fate that the ^zz^>-
which was to Cellini but an afterthought of
his declining years, should, in the eyes of posterity, have
acquired for him,—and in a secondary sense for his much-
vaunted works,—a fame such as none of those works—
not even his cherished Ar^zzj, for which he endured so
much—could ever have secured for themselves.
Since the two causes above-mentioned kept the name
and fame of Cellini always before the minds and eyes of
subsequent art-connoisseurs, and no one arose competent
or bold enough to dispute attributions, a vast amount of
contemporary work (much of it not even Italian at all)
has been from time to time recklessly attributed to him.
Of late years, however, M. Eugene Plon, Mr. Sidney
Churchill, and other careful and conscientious students
of the "Art of the Goldsmith," have carefully sifted
these attributions, and it is in humble transcript of those
eminent authorities that the lists at the end of this
present work have been compiled. There is, however,