3-008-985 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The International Exhibition: "Daphne", marble statue by Marshall Wood - from a photograph by the London Stereoscopic Company, 1862. '...the sculptor...has followed the well-known version given by Ovid of the fate of this beautiful maiden, who, being pursued by Apollo...prayed to her mother Ge (the Earth) for aid and was metamorphosed into a laurel-tree...She is represented...as involuntarily subsiding towards the laurel-branches, which already cling to the back part of the figure...with all its loveliness, [the sculpture] has not the slightest sensuousness, but, on the contrary, a chaste, virginal severity, which is equally appropriate to the subject. The figure throughout is full of grace and beauty...The features are chiselled with still more consummate delicacy and accuracy...The extreme beauty of the face is nevertheless unquestionable...We are made to feel that life is rapidly gliding away; consciousness is almost extinguished, the knees fail, the arm moves with vague purposelessness or falls unnerved; there is the sudden languor, and the eyes close tremulously, yet the expression has not the negative character of sleep nor the painful indications of fainting. This admirable work was executed for Countess Waldegrave'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.