Perry, Walter Copland: Greek and Roman sculpture: a popular introduction to the history of Greek and Roman sculpture (London, 1882)

AGRIPPIXA THE ELDER.

657

elegant form, completely robed from neck to feet in the long tunic,
with the chlamys over the knees, rests in an easy and grace-
ful attitude on a chair. The outstretched and crossed legs denote
complete repose, but it is not the repose of habitual self-indulgence or
listlessness. The proud and stately bearing of the finely shaped head
bespeaks the innate greatness of mind which enabled her to take on
herself the duties of a general, to rebuke the timidity of the less
heroic men who would have broken up the bridge over the Rhine, to
encourage and rew ard the victorious legions of her husband by her
thanks and praises, and to minister with her own hands to the wants
of the sick and wounded. It is altogether a noble work of art, and,
always excepting the matchless Olympian dames of the Parthenon
pediment, who arc not
of this world, we know
of no draped reclining
female form in sta-
tuary in which the
mingled grace and
dignity and the aris-
tocratic refinement of
the high-born lady
are better pourtrayed.
Analogous to this ad-
mirable work are :
the affecting statue at
Maples, of tin- younger
Agrippina, the mother
of Nero, at an advanced period of life ; and the statue of Lk ia (?), the
wife of Augustus, in the Museo Torlonia, in the Lungara at Rome.1

The refined taste in dress displayed in these figures, and in
other works of the Roman period— e.g. the so-called l^udicitia of
the Vatican—carries us back to the golden age of Greek art. That
the noble and graceful drapery which we meet w ith in sculpture was
>n actual use is proved by the exquisite draped figures of ladies in