Page:Joseph Drew - Art Treasures and their Preservation scan.pdf/4

92 were broken quite away, but showed their position by the fracture on the ball of the thumb where they originally touched. It was, of course, requisite that every new portion should be executed in the same style as the antique, and that, in the fitting and finishing, not the slightest damage should be done to the original surface of the statue. The statue is considered by some to be one of the finest in the Museum, and its restoration is universally acknowledged to be a marked success. But to pass on to the sister art, painting, we are pleased to be able to say that as a rule, the works handed down to us by the painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and more especially those of the Venetian, Roman, and Parma school, are well preserved. We can go quite as far back for examples of the painter's art as we can for those of the sculptor's, but they are not so familiar to us from the fact that very few are found in private collections, for paintings were not always the moveable chattles and cabinet gems they are at the present day. In its earliest phases the painter's art was principally called into requisition for mural decoration—the delineation of battles and triumphs, or the representation of at political events, and these were usually painted on the interior walls of public edifices, and on the ceilings of the mansions of the great, but even these early works commanded much attention in their day, and the artists realised enormous prices for their productions. The earliest picture of which we have any authentic record is one painted 720 years before Christ, by Bularchus, and mentioned by Pliny. It represented the battle of the Magnesians, and this was purchased by the King of Lydia for its weight in gold; but as we have neither the size of the picture nor the particulars of the material upon which it was painted, we can form no conception of the price realised for this early work of art. Pliny, however, mentions another picture painted by a disciple of Antidotus, representing "Ulysses invoking the shadows of the dead," for which the artist refused 60 talents of gold, or about £11,000 sterling, and afterwards made it a present to his country. All these very early productions, however, were in outline only, and it was not until Apollodorus, the Athenian, established a school for painting, about 400 years before our era, that the distribution of light and shade became a recognised principle of the art. Apollodorus was the first man who contributed to the glory of painting, and before he appeared there were no productions of the easel worthy to be call works of art. Alexander the Great was a munificent patron of the fine arts, and by way of encouragement, he gave a monopoly—so far as his own person was concerned—to Lyseppus the sculptor and to Apelles the painter, and refused to permit any other artist to carve his bust, paint his portrait, or even to introduce his figure