3-043-829 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

''My First Friend," by F. Barzaghi, 1872. 'This pretty statue is by Signor Barzaghi, the eminent sculptor of Milan, whose "Phryne Unrobed before her Judges," at Burlington House, has excited such great and deserved, yet qualified, admiration. There can be no two opinions as to the extreme beauty and expressiveness, and almost perfect modelling, of the Phryne; but, although the conception and "motif" are only too appropriate to the courtesan, it may justly be contended that it is a misapplication of sculpture (which, surely, should be the purest form of art) to employ it for the glorification of mere sensuousness. The work we now engrave, which is also in the Royal Academy, cannot, from the nature of the subject, be open to the same objection; whilst it bears adequate testimony to the consummate skill of the sculptor. The introduction of the little Maltese terrier as "my first friend" affords, in the representation of the dog's shaggy coat, an opportunity for textural imitation of which the artist has taken advantage. Italian sculptors are very fond of displaying their skill in this direction: indeed, often too fond, the attention being thereby drawn from higher qualities'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.