THE STUDIO AND HOUSE OF SCHWANTHALER.

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Wenzel—is peculiarly beautiful, and, from the almost
feminine character of the countenance turned towards
heaven in an inspiration of intense love, and from the rich
mecliseval costume in which the figure is clothed, might
readily be mistaken for Joan of Arc. The entrance to the
gallery is guarded by two stern old fellows,—Huss and
Ziska,—also from the Walhalla.
It would be too long a business to attempt to particularize
one-tenth of the statues which enrich this wonderful
studio. This gallery of which I have spoken, a corre-
sponding gallery on the opposite side of the court-yard, and
a lesser one connecting the two, and where towers the
astounding head of the awful Bavaria, are crowded with
works more or less successful, from the brain of this great
sculptor, who died in his forty-sixth year, and the last ten
years of whose life were an almost incessant martyrdom.
Schwanthaler'’ s works may be divided into three classes : —
Firstly, those belonging to the old Scandinavian world, and
the age of Saga, of which the Bavaria, the Hermann, and
the Libussa may be taken as the types ; secondly, the me-
diaeval; and thirdly—alas, that Schwanthaler should have
succumbed to the dire necessity !—portraits. There are
various colossal and illustrious dukes, electors, kings, and
emperors, to whom he has certainly succeeded in giving an
air of stern dignity; and there are various monuments to
men illustrious in other ways,—as Groethe, Jean Paul, &c :
but all these statues are very mediocre in the presence of
the Hermann, the Libussa, or the four statues of the
Livers which adorn a fountain in Vienna.
Schwanthaler revelled in the old legendary world; his
subjects are bards and seers as well as warriors and ama-
zons. The Libussa is as unique as the old Bohemian
legend itself. Once having seen that gloriously beautiful
damsel, with her indescribable countenance,—in which is a
strange mingling of the amazon, the enchantress, and the