Volume 4

Official descriptive and illustrated catalogue / Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851 ; by authority of the Royal Commission.

  • The Great Exhibition
Date:
1851-[1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Official descriptive and illustrated catalogue / Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, 1851 ; by authority of the Royal Commission. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    306/716 (page 1526)
    A. Kiss, of Berlin (279, p. 1065). An Amazon on horseback attacked by a Tiger. With a ferocious boimd the animal has leaped upon her horse, and fastened on him with teeth and claws. The Amazon is about to transfix her assailant with her spear. This work, which is on a colossal scale, has been cast in zinc by Geiss, from the original model, and bronzed by electro deposit. In this group the artist has, by an original and powerful effort of invention, placed before our eyes the most critical moment of the action. The whole expression and cha- racter of the Amazon are very nobly conceived; the anatomy displays consummate knowledge; great style is shown in the general treatment of the surface, and the details are wrought out with wonderful force and truth. The whole work is full of soul; it seems the full, earnest utterance of a true artistic nature. The great qualities of this work called forth at the time of its completion the most unbounded admiration on the part both of artists and friends of art. It was exe- cuted in bronze by a public subscription, and now orna- ments one side of the staircase of the Royal Museum at Berlin. Since the year 1815, great efforts have been made in Prussia, by the successive monarchs and administrations of Prussia, to encourage the fine arts in that country. Museums, and other buildings of a similar character, have been erected; sculptors, and more recently painters, have been employed in the execution of monumental works, and the cultivation of all those manufactures, on which art can exercise any influence, has been greatly promoted by the foundation of the institution for trades (Gewerbe Institute, under the energetic and judicious management of Privy-councillor Beuth. That these efforts have led to the happiest results has been proved by the Exhibition, which has furnished to Prussia a long- desired opportunity of showing what progress has been made,—Juries' Reports, p. 697. 811 ScHULZ, L. W., Meininrjen—Inventor and Manufacturer. Large carved ivory tankard.—P. 1095.—Plate 297. [Ivory has been employed from a very early period as a material upon which to exercise artistic skill and taste. The recent excavations at Nineveh disclosed num- berless objects formed of that substance, delicately and elaborately carved. The benches of the galleys of the famed city of Tyre were inlaid therewith by the com- pany of the Ashuritesallusions to ivory in the sacred volume prove the acquaintance of the ancients with it as a substance adapted for the purposes of ornamenta- tion. The most extraordinary work executed in ivory appears to have been the Jupiter of the great Phidias, who flourished some 440 years before the Christian era. The statue was 60 feet in height, and was plated or veneered all over M^ith pieces of ivory, which were carefully fitted together and thereafter carved to the required form. Quatremere de Quincy, who writes upon the subject, maintains that the ancients were acquainted with means which enabled them to procure plates of a great size. By a process recently introduced of cutting the tooth round by means of a saw, a ribbon or sheet of ivory is produced or unfolded, corresponding to the entire depth of the tusk and thickness of the sheet, and only limited thereby; these are principally used by miniature painters. Some time ago a sheet 17 inches by 38 was shown, and a French manufacturer has produced them so large as 30 by 150 inches. The chief supply of ivory is received from the Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, India, and the countries to the eastward of the Straits of Malacca. Immense quantities of fossil ivory is found in Siberia, in the re- mains of an extinct class of animals, the tusks and bones of which have been preserved by the ice and soil in which they were imbedded. In the curious manipulation of ivory the Chinese take the lead; but very exquisite spe- cimens of ivory carving may be seen in Dieppe, one street of the town being entirely filled with shops which expose at their windows for sale brooches, crucifixes, statuettes^ paper knives, &c., covered with the most delicate work- manship, and thoroughly artistic in character. Ivory is readily turned in a lathe, with tools of an ordinary kind. It is carved with chisels and gouges, smoothed with files and floats of suitable cut; and after being rendered on the surface of a finer texture by friction with very fine glass or emery paper, the final polish is produced by friction with a rag on which whiting and water are spread, or, where the surface is irregular, by a brush dipped in the same material,—W. C. A.] MECKLENBURGH. 11 DOLBERG. A balance to carry one kilogramme in each pan. The oscillation of the pans is checked by hair brushes. The pans are suspended from plates of steel, having plane sur- faces, Avhich rest upon the extreme knife edges. BELGIUM. Beaulieu, Belgium. A repeating theodolite, furnished with a circle of 13 inches diameter, and read by 4 verniers to 10 seconds, and is adapted to take either horizontal or vertical angles. Six sextants, of different radii; an octant in ebony. FRANCE. 369 Perreaux, M., 14 Rue Monsieur le Prince, Paris— Manufacturer. A straight-line divider, on Ramsden's principle; fur- nished with a long fine steel screw, and a screw-head divided into 400 parts, a helix screw, and a stop fixed at a definite point. 511 Fastre, J. T., 3 Rue de TEcole Poly technique, Paris —Manufacturer. An assortment of delicate thermometers, the divisions in all cases being on their own glass stems; Regnault's hygrometer, and Ernst's barometer. [This arrangement of the divisions being placed on the tubes of the thermometer, admits of a more correct read- ing of the temperature, and is not liable to the inaccuracy which would result from the expansion or contraction of the material out of which scales are usually made.-— W. C. A.] 1231 FouRDiNOis, Alexander Georges, 46 Rue Amelot, Paris—Manufacturer. A walnut sideboard in the Renaissance style, supported upon six hounds, of which two are in profile; in the centre is a large trophy of dead animals, on each side are panels with fruit introduced, the pilasters are adorned with four figures, representing the four quarters of the world; on the right is a hunter and on the left a fisherman, as cary- atydes. The figure on the top represents Abundance, on each side are groups of children reaping and gleaning. Some parts of the wood are tinted, to give more life to the carving.—P. 1236.—Plate 333. [The Renaissance style is one peculiarly suited to artists familiar with the ornament of all ages, and recommends itself by the exuberance of the ornamentation which may