Marshall County Republican

Sculptors and Sculpture.

A correspondent in Italy gives the following facts about sculpture:

"How many there are who still think that the statue which they see and admire in its harmonious perfection is the product of the artist's chisel'—as the phrase is—whose name the statue bears! We hear constantly that such a sculptor 'finishes perfectly,' when his hand has had nothing to do with the work after the clay model was finished. Only his eye and directing mind have followed the process, with that sense of responsibility demanded by reputation already gained, or yet to be won. Ball and Connolly have $750 for a portrait bust, and the price demanded by Powers is $1,000. All but $100, the price paid for the piece of marble and the work, is the profit which goes to the sculptor for his clay model, which costs him the labor of a week or ten days. The beautiful ideal of 'Proserpine,' by Powers, which has been repeated well toward a hundred times, and which is always under the hands of the workmen, is sold for $400 or $500. The cost of making it is about $80. An ideal statue, sold for $4,000 or $5,000, costs the artist, for marble and work, $1,500. As soon as the clay model has passed from his hands, to be manipulated upon in marble, the artist is free to begin a new design."