Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 4.djvu/30

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\1RGL\IA BIOGRAPHY

Edward Virginius Valentine. No stranger (if ncjte leaves Richmond without a visit to \'alentine's Studio and in glancing through the sculptor's register one sees such names as Matthew Arnold, James Barron Hope, Edwin Booth, Joe Jefferson, Sol. Smith Russell, Joaquin Miller, the Alarquis of Lome, Charlotte Cushman, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Marion Sims and a host of others. The building stands on Leigh street, whose spacious homes, in their green settings, were planned when the possibility of crowd- ing was remote.

An antique brass knocker on the door of the front building suggests it as the artist's reception room, and having gained a ready admittance, the stranger stands face to face with a man whose youthful figure and fresh complexion refute the imputation made by his whitened locks, while his finely carved poetic face marks him as the denizen of an ideal world, rather than of the commercial one around us. In manner, this genius of the chisel, who has cut his name so deep into the history of his native land that it will last as long as its annals endure, is so natural as to disappoint the inexperienced, who fail to recognize in simplicity the at- tribute of merit, and so modest is he that it is only here a little and there a little that one gleams some knowledge of his life and work.

ISIuch of his modeling is done in the front studio, the other being reserved for his larger work, and both, with the rooms above the first, are storehouses of the most inter- esting and valuable objects. Each has its own story, making a tour through them, with their owner as a guide, a delightful experience. A collection of books in hog- skin bindings, which have withstood the wear of more than two hundred years, would charm the bibliomaniac, as would volumes of illuminations done by the Flor- entine monks, and bound sheets of Pom- peiian colors, whose richness and deJJcacy shame modern achievements. A specimen of Cinque Cento furniture of quaint design and elaborate carving, its secret drawers exciting and baffling the imagination, is an- other notable feature, as is a copy of De La Roche's "'Hemicycle," presented by the family of John R. Thompson after his death, and a steel engraving of Ary SchefTer's por- trait of Lafayette, a .duplicate of which is owned bv Mr. P>everlv Kennon of Wash-

ington. Here, too, are casts from the an- tique, curios from Egypt, old tapestries, statuettes by Flamingo, figures from Pom- peii, with treasures from the galleries of Florence and Rome. A long row of death masks, including that of Napoleon, Freder- ick the Great, X'oltaire, Henry IV. of France, Charles XH., Queen Louise and other immortal mortals, extend a ghastly welcome from an upper shelf, and every- where one encounters in clay or marble such celebrities as Humboldt, Edwin Booth, Mary Anderson and the like, with Lee, Jackson, Davis, John C. Breckinridge, and all the rest of the southern heroes of the civil war. A clay copy of the Apollo Belvidere, for which Mr. Valentine received a silver medal, has a special interest as his second attempt at modeling. It was made from a bust from the Vatican which stood in the back parlor of his father's home, and was the terror of his childhood, making him "shy" as he passed it in the dark on his way to the dining room. His first experiment was a bust portrait of a negro boy, for which his subject stood in the back yard. "It was cold," the sculptor says, laughing as he recalls the scene, "and I can see at this moment the funny expression on that darkev's face." His portrayal of the negro is indeed unequalled, and in "Uncle Henry," the family coachman, who drove his parents to the ball given in Richmond in 1824 to Lafayette, the antebellum Virginia darkey will live when the last representative of the fast vanishing type, and those familiar with it. have crumbled to dust.

\'alentine's statues, as of JefYerson, in the beautiful hotel of that name in Richmond : of Jackson, Wickham, John C. Breckinridge. Henry Timrod and others adorn the public buildings and squares in various cities, while his bust portraits are scattered everywhere. The "Blind Girl,'' one of the most exquisite creations, was conceived while hearing an inmate of the blind asylum in Staunton sing the hymn :

For thee. My God, tlie living God, My thirsty soul doth pine;

Oh, wiien shall I behold thy face, Thou majesty divine?

The graceful form seems spiritualized by the ethereal tenant. The lovely hands are clasped in yearning aspiration, the lips parted as if in singing, while the upturned