DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.14144#0452
4i6
THE NIOBE GROUP.
of the mother (177,/), on whose devoted head these ruins fall, pre-
eminent, not in stature and beauty alone (digna ded fades), but in the
dignity of her divine despair. Without any further attempt to flee or to
save herself, she gazes upwards with a wistful but hopeless glance
which stirs the inmost chords of the soul. With the maternal instinct
still strong in her heart she folds the tender shrinking form of her
youngest daughter (177,/) to her lap, and tries to shield her with her
own person from the coming death.
On its first discovery the Florentine group was hailed without
hesitation by the credulous enthusiasm of the age as the very work
of Scopas or Praxiteles mentioned by Pliny.' Closer examination,
however, gave rise to doubts, to which the acute and unsparing
critic Mengs gave loud and decided utterance. He brought forward
sufficient reason for declaring that not one of the figures could
be regarded as the work of a great Greek master. This ap-
parently hasty and harsh judgment was more generally acquiesced in
after the great discoveries of the 19th century, which brought to light
undoubted original works of Greek art in the sculptures of ^igina,
Olympia, the Theseion and the Parthenon, and established a standard
by which previously known works could be fairly tested. Still more
important in the case before us was the discovery of duplicates of
some of the principal Niobid statues at Florence. The famous
daughter of A'iobe- in the Chiaramonti Gallery in the Vatican is
immeasurably superior to the corresponding figure in the Uffizi ; and,
indeed, as it is of Parian marble, some writers regard it as belonging
to the original group. Canova discovered another fragmentary group
in the Vatican of a young girl wounded by an arrozu in the left breast,
and leaning against a youthful male figure, which corresponds exactly
with a portion of the P'lorcntinc group. Some writers would bestow
the name of Niobid on the well-known and most beautiful figure of a
kneeling youth, generally called Ilioneus, in the Glyptothek at Munich ;
and even Friederichs seems half inclined to the same opinion. Ilioneus,
as the reader will remember, is the name given by Ovid to the
1 Winckelmann, too, was deceived, and doubt of their originality,
said that no one as yet had expressed a * A duplicate of </in the Florentine group.
THE NIOBE GROUP.
of the mother (177,/), on whose devoted head these ruins fall, pre-
eminent, not in stature and beauty alone (digna ded fades), but in the
dignity of her divine despair. Without any further attempt to flee or to
save herself, she gazes upwards with a wistful but hopeless glance
which stirs the inmost chords of the soul. With the maternal instinct
still strong in her heart she folds the tender shrinking form of her
youngest daughter (177,/) to her lap, and tries to shield her with her
own person from the coming death.
On its first discovery the Florentine group was hailed without
hesitation by the credulous enthusiasm of the age as the very work
of Scopas or Praxiteles mentioned by Pliny.' Closer examination,
however, gave rise to doubts, to which the acute and unsparing
critic Mengs gave loud and decided utterance. He brought forward
sufficient reason for declaring that not one of the figures could
be regarded as the work of a great Greek master. This ap-
parently hasty and harsh judgment was more generally acquiesced in
after the great discoveries of the 19th century, which brought to light
undoubted original works of Greek art in the sculptures of ^igina,
Olympia, the Theseion and the Parthenon, and established a standard
by which previously known works could be fairly tested. Still more
important in the case before us was the discovery of duplicates of
some of the principal Niobid statues at Florence. The famous
daughter of A'iobe- in the Chiaramonti Gallery in the Vatican is
immeasurably superior to the corresponding figure in the Uffizi ; and,
indeed, as it is of Parian marble, some writers regard it as belonging
to the original group. Canova discovered another fragmentary group
in the Vatican of a young girl wounded by an arrozu in the left breast,
and leaning against a youthful male figure, which corresponds exactly
with a portion of the P'lorcntinc group. Some writers would bestow
the name of Niobid on the well-known and most beautiful figure of a
kneeling youth, generally called Ilioneus, in the Glyptothek at Munich ;
and even Friederichs seems half inclined to the same opinion. Ilioneus,
as the reader will remember, is the name given by Ovid to the
1 Winckelmann, too, was deceived, and doubt of their originality,
said that no one as yet had expressed a * A duplicate of </in the Florentine group.