3-043-827 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"An English Rose," by G. Halse, 1872. 'Discarding in his type and treatment everything distinctively recalling either the classical or mediaeval, the renaissant or modern scholastic in style, Mr. Halse has evidently gone straight to nature for the "English rose" which furnished the model for this pretty statuette at the Academy. Her profile is not strictly Greek: her nose is even slightly - very slightly - retroussé; yet who shall say she is a whit the less pleasant to look on? If her mould is not quite ideal, her charms have certainly not been sacrificed to fashion; they are neither concealed nor set off by art. She is a true rustic lass, as pure, and sweet, and bright a product of nature as the rose she offers, and which in life matches her blushing cheeks, as no doubt the sculptor would bear us out in saying. It was not this sort of statue that Byron had in view when he declared - "I've seen much finer women ripe and real, Than all the nonsense of your stone ideal".' From "Illustrated London News", 1872.