3-008-824 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The International Exhibition: "Ino and Bacchus", marble group by J. H. Foley, R.A., 1862. Engraving of a sculpture in the Earl of Ellesmere's Bridgewater Collection. 'No classical subject of sculpture has commanded more universal interest and admiration, for its charming naturalness [and]...for its surpassing loveliness, than the "Ino and Bacchus." The boldness and originality are as remarkable as the beauty of the composition. The greater advantages afforded by the recumbent positions (artistically managed) for the display of ease and grace are conspicuously shown...The noble serpentine sweep and tender undulating flow and freedom of the hues throughout are in the highest degree masterly. The overreaching arm of Ino temptingly holding above, yet (womanlike) teasingly withholding, the grapes from the outstretched arms of the little incipient wine-god is not only very exquisitely modelled and wonderful for lightness and grace, but it forms the most elegant apex imaginable to the composition, and the action at the same time very felicitously suggests the early taste implanted in the infant god by his nurse weaning him upon the juice of the grape - a taste soon after developed, if we are to believe the old poets, in a great deal of bad company'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.